Global SMS Traffic Up 30% Over New Year Period
Global SMS traffic over the 2007/2008 New Year period increased by 30% compared to the same period last year, according to new data from Acision.
Around the world, phone users sent a staggering 43 billion text messages to wish their loved ones a happy New Year.
Growth was strong in both mature and emerging markets, said Acision. In Portugal, SMS traffic almost tripled across the festive period compared to last year and Dutch operator KPN saw its messaging traffic double on New Years Eve.
However the most astounding growth figures came from developing markets, where India’s 220 million mobile subscribers sent over a billion text messages – a 300% increase to their day to day traffic levels.
The Philippines retained its title as the text messaging capital of the world – sending a remarkable 1.39 billion text messages from a subscriber base of just 50 million.
Steven van Zanen, head of messaging futures, Acision said: “Messaging represents a significant slice of mobile operator revenues, and events like New Years Eve demonstrate how critical it is for operators to ensure a reliable and speedy service.
“One of our operator customers’ infrastructure operated under peaks of 19,000 messages sent per second without congestion or delay. The New Year figures are eagerly anticipated each year and this year’s record traffic levels again do not disappoint.”
Towards the end of last year, the Mobile Data Association (MDA) released figures showing that more than 4.8 billion text message were sent during September 2007, an average of over 1.2 billion each week (see More Texts Sent In September 2007 Than The Whole Of 1999).
Britons are demonstrating an increasingly voracious appetite for the medium, said the MDA, as this number equates to the same number of messages sent during the whole of 1999.
However, earlier in the year, Gartner forecast that text messages will be obsolete within the next five years.
Gartner said that although there are currently 114 million text messages sent daily in the UK, due to wireless internet technology coming down in price more mobile phone handsets will include online technology, meaning that more users will move from text to email (see Text Messaging To Be Obsolete Within Five Years).
Acision: www.acision.com