The global popularity of SMS – ‘text messaging’ via mobile phone – has generated 750 million messages per day by September 2001 says the GSM Association, representing mobile network operators worldwide.
The Association has now upgraded its forecasts for 2001 from 200 to 250 billion total mobile messages globally, 1 billion per day by the end of 2001.
The Christmas and New Year festivities are expected to boost these figures along with the development of increasingly diverse and sophosticated applications for the technology. Sports results, betting services, lottery-style games, and financial services are all now available via SMS.
However person-to-person messaging remains the most popular application and still accounts for the bulk of global traffic.
“What is remarkable” says Robert Conway, CEO of the GSM Association, “is that kids in places like Australia and New Zealand are using the same shortcuts and word formations as the kids in the UK and Europe. GSM Text is a global communications phenomena – but SMS has helped create a new global language.”
