Nokia optimistic on data revenues

Nokia expects revenues from data services to make up more than a third of total group income in 2006. Data should contribute around EU280bn while voice traffic will decline proportionately to EU530bn, according to reports. SMS messaging, which currently provides the lion's share of data revenues, accounted for an average of 7% of operators income last year. The impact of next-generation phones, enabling users to send and recieve colour pictures, audio and video files, is expected to lead to a surge in demand for MMS services, if the Japanese market is anything to go by. Data service in Japan already contribute up to a fifth of total revenues for operators. Nokia expects person-to-person revenues to be the largest single contributor to revenues in the future.