SMS/MMS: Free or Not Free, That Is the Question

Chinese portals are expecting MMS (multimedia messaging) services to become a “gold mine” sustaining their profit growth, and have earmarked large sums for aggressive development. “MMS based on 2.5G technology will herald explosive growth in 2004,” according to Sohu’s CEO, Charles Zhang. At the end of 2003, 8 million Chinese residents subscribed to MMS; this industry is expected to be worth US$22 billion by 2008. Other portals also are eyeing the move toward MMS from SMS (text messaging). Interestingly, this news comes at a time when portal Lycos UK has announced that it will close its free SMS service due to rising costs. Close to 2 million registered users were able to send up to three messages per day from the portal to mobile phones free of charge.