The text messaging craze reached new heights during 2002 with almost 17 billion person to person text messages sent across the four UK GSM networks, according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA).
The data also shows that 1.6 billion SMS messages were sent during December, taking the daily average for the month to 52 million, compared to 42 million in December 2001 and 24 million in the same period the previous year.
Mike Short, chairman of the MDA, said: “It has been a great year for text messaging. We are seeing text messaging used increasingly as part of our everyday lives, from interactive text television programmes, such as Big Brother and Fame Academy, to life saving text rescue requests from around the world.”
The MDA forecasts continued growth for the medium, with text messaging expected to reach 20 billion during 2003, equating to 55 million messages per day against an average of 43 million for 2002.
Growth is expected to be driven by mobile phone operators and service providers offering more customer text bundles, improved handsets and increased memory capability. Improved choice and competition in messaging services is also expanding the use use of text into WAP, picture and instant messaging as people make use of the range of mobile messaging services available to them.
