The Mobile Data Association has been forced to revise its usage forecasts for the UK’s text messaging services after figures for the first seven months of the year revealed a staggering 15 billion messages had changed hands.
The MDA’s forecast now predicts a total of 25 billion messages for 2004, up from its previous forecast of 23 billion. The new figures show that British mobile phone users have become no less attached to the devices over the past year, as the MDA expects around five billion extra messages to be sent this year, compared with a total of 20.5 billion for the whole of 2003.
According to the MDA, person-to-person texts sent across the UK’s mobile network operators increased by 28% last month, compared with the same period in 2003, while the daily average of 69 million messages was up from 54 million in the same period last year.
The release of this year’s A Level results on 19th August gave a boost to text message totals, as youngsters raced to share the good, or bad, news to their friends and family. A total of 81 million text messages were sent on the day of the results, an increase of 21% on last year.
Commenting on the continued growth in popularity of text messaging, MDA chairman, Mike Short, said that the convenience of the medium, coupled with wider adoption across business markets, meant that almost everyone had experience of some sort with the technology. He stated: “There is no age barrier in texting any more.”
The MDA recently launched a programme of workshops to introduce older generations to text messaging. The workshops, held for the over 50’s at Wyevale Garden Centres across the country, ran throughout June and were hugely successful with up to 200 visitors a time receiving guidance from experts.
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