According to new figures from The GSM Association , 15 billion SMS messages were sent via GSM networks in December 2000 representing a five-fold increase on figures for the rpevious year. “This is a truly staggering demonstration of the increasing popularity of the SMS facility,” says Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association. “SMS text is now achieving critical mass in many international markets. We have seen a huge culture change in the way people choose to communicate – now the visual message is as powerful and popular as voice.”
UK customers generated 756 million text messages in December 2000, a rise of almost 300% on December 1999 figures, whilst Germany users sent a staggering 1.8 billion SMS messages during the month. The average amount of text messages sent per customer per month had also unsurprisingly grown from 0.4 in 1995 to 35 in 2000.
The report predicts that 25 billion text messages will be sent monthly by December 2000 and over 200 billion by December 2002. “By far the greatest usage of traffic continues to be generated by consumer applications,” says Conway. “Person-to-person messaging still creates high volumes of short duration text message traffic for operators, especially in the pre-paid market.”
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