Relentless Rise In Texts Continues Throughout March

Text messaging continued its upward climb during March, with the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) revealing that an impressive 2.57 billion messages were sent during the month, an increase of 21% year on year and a 93% increase on the total sent in March 2002.

With 83 million messages being sent each day, the new figure is the highest average ever recorded by the MDA, showing that consumers’ attachment to their mobile phones is far from waning.

The figures for March build on February’s total, which was boosted by huge usage of SMS messaging on Valentine’s Day. More than seven times more text messages were sent on Valentine’s Day than cards this year, with 92 million texts sent compared to 12 million cards (see Texts Outweigh Cards On Valentine’s Day).

The forthcoming General Election has also boosted usage of text messages, according to the MDA, with question answering SMS service, 82ASK, reporting a 61% rise in questions about policies, political views, and how to vote, along with a significant amount of trivia queries.

According to the service, the most popular questions have concerned who is going to win the general election (35%), followed by those relating to specific party policies on issues such as health and public transport (20%). Questions about voting also featured highly, including those asking how to apply for a postal vote, whether people from Gibraltar are entitled to vote in UK elections and whether there is a spending limit for election campaigns.

Mobile Data Association: 01922 419600 www.mda-mobiledata.org