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Sharpcards: Sharpcards plays Cupid as MMS blossoms MMS grows by 30% in the last year aloneLondon, Feb 10, 2009 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Sharpcards, the world's largest provider of mobile ecards is gearing up for mobile messaging's busiest times of the year. This Valentine's Day Sharpcards has an exclusive range of premium branded ecards on offer to its loved up users. The mobile messaging market raked in around $130 billion in revenues by the end 2008, and is on target to increase that to $224 billion by 2013. Although the majority of this is made up by SMS, the popularity of MMS has been increasing steadily over the past few years. In 2009 MMS is expected to generate over $31 billion worldwide, $1 billion more than SMS was generating five years ago. MMS is also being predicted to pass 115 billion messages by the end of 2011*. In 2008 Sharpcards sold over 1.5m mobile personal greetings worldwide, with around 20% of those sales (300,000) coming from Valentine's Day alone. Key trends from last year: 40% of mobile ecards were bought in the four hours between 08:00 and 12:00 (around 30,000 greetings sold per hour) 56% of sales occurred before midday and less than 2% after 22:00 - there are some of us who obviously like to live dangerously It seems that most people in the world are soft at heart, with cute and cuddly outselling kinky cards by 3-1 in 2008 Sharpcards sent 363 marriage proposals through mobile ecards on Valentines Day 2008: Perhaps not the most traditional way to 'pop the question' but unfortunately Sharpcards doesn't know whether there were 363 'yeses'! Will Walsh, Sharpcards CEO said: "In the last year, MMS has grown by 30% and with 10 million picture messages sent a week (NMA - Aug08) it's clear that people want to put more emotion and personality into their messages. Obviously Valentine's Day is a time, more than any, when people like to share their emotions. Sometimes you just can't get your feelings across in text or a phone call, which is why people are turning to mobile greetings as the old saying goes, ' a picture is worth a thousand words'." Will continued: "We pride ourselves on the quality, variety and originality of our content. By having partnerships with some of the world's biggest brands, such as Disney, Hallmark, Cartoon Network and American Greetings, we can offer our customers the most exciting content around." Sharpcards currently runs enhanced messaging services for Orange, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, H3G and other major carriers around the world. About Sharpcards Founded in 2000, Sharpcards is pioneering enhanced messaging services for the mobile phone. With exclusive branded content, it provides and develops fun and entertaining services; most notably its popular messaging service. With offices in London, New York, Sydney and Madrid, Sharpcards works directly with mobile carriers and handset manufacturers around the world. In September 2007, Sharpcards received a GBP1.5m investment from Seraphim Capital. www.sharpcards.net CONTACT: Sharpcards WWW: http://www.sharpcards.net Neil Robertson, IF Communications e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)7739 322 503 M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data supplied by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to [email protected]. |