European mobile operators are called upon to take full advantage of mobile social networking's potential as the number of users in the region is expected to increase from 52 million in 2009 to 112 million at the end of this year and could reach 450 million users by 2014, according to a new report from Pyramid Research.

Mobile Operators See Strong Revenue Potential from Social Networking looks at the social networking business model in Europe and analyzes its future, including forecasting the number of social networking members expected by 2014. The 18-page report addresses three possible drivers of uptake: a quality user experience based on the high penetration of 3G and smartphones that we project across Europe; operators' efforts aimed at increasing mobile social networking uptake; and the efforts of social network providers to promote the value of mobility among their users.

Pyramid Research believes that there is a strong opportunity for mobile social networking in Europe and predicts the total number of users will increase by 150% by end of 2010 to 112 million, and will reach 450 million users by 2014, notes Stela Bokun, analyst at Pyramid Research and author of the report. "Technical issues, such as the penetration of 3G networks and advanced handsets, that are of paramount importance to many other markets are, with few exceptions, non-issues in most European markets, and both mobile operators and SNSs are motivated toward a joint future," says Bokun.

For this growth to last throughout the entire forecast period, both mobile operators and SNSs should strengthen their collaboration and bring it to a new level. "By collaborating, European operators and global SNSs can increase the pie for everyone by creating new revenue opportunities from increased data usage and can benefit from new revenue streams, such as advertising," Bokun says. "SNSs' proactive role in promoting the importance of mobile access among their users will be a strong contributing factor in the projected uptake of mobile social networking," she continues. "For example, through strong collaboration with mobile operators, Facebook has grown its mobile users from only 5 million in January 2008 to an estimated 85 million in December 2009; our projection is that more than 30% of its global mobile users are in Europe," adds Bokun.
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