Consumer communications choices continue to expand, and mobile operators are contributing to this growth with new forms of messaging, including text, multimedia, and instant messaging to go along with mobile email. The many flavors of messaging will account for more than 126 billion messages and $8.6 billion in revenue in the US in 2009, with short message service (SMS) dominating these numbers. Successful operators will market the consumer benefits of messaging, price transparently, and work with handset vendors to deliver a superior and differentiated user interface. As messaging explodes, companies will vie to control a key asset: the address book.