Text Messaging Reaches Record Levels In January
The latest figures from the Mobile Data Association show that sending text messages is still one of the nation’s favourite pastimes with over 71 million messages sent daily throughout January.
Text messaging of unprecedented proportions was achieved on New Year’s Day topping 111 million, while the total number of text messages sent last month was 2.2 billion, an increase of 0.6 billion on January 2003 (see Record Number Of Text Messages Sent On New Year’s Day).
However, this increase may be due to the Mobile Data Association’s inclusion of figures from Virgin Mobile. In the past the MDA’s figures consisted of messages sent solely from Orange, O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone, but this month they include text messages sent using Virgin Mobile’s service.
Speaking about the new measurements Steven Day, corporate affairs director of Virgin Mobile commented: “We are very pleased to now be included in the MDA’s texting figures, as it demonstrates Virgin Mobile’s growing role as a major player in the field of mobile telecommunications. We are looking forward to a long association with MDA and a continual increase in the popularity of messaging services.”
According to the latest figures, predictions made last year by the MDA are on track. If proved correct, total numbers of text messages for 2004 should reach 23 billion by the end of the year, equating to 63 million messages per day.
Commenting on the forecast Mike Short, chairman of the MDA, said: “We are delighted to have Virgin Mobile on-board. We can now provide a more comprehensive picture of the growth of text messaging. The latest round of figures confirm what we’ve already forecast, that text messaging usage will continue to grow with operators and service providers offering customers greater choice, higher speed devices and of course more functionality.”
Figures from the MDA also show that the number of internet page impressions made by WAP devices topped one billion in the UK for the first time in December 2003. The data represents an increase of 50 million over November’s total and provides the highest monthly total for WAP page impressions since the MDA began collecting data in September 2002 (see UK WAP Page Impressions Top 1 Billion In December).
Mobile Data Association: 01922 419600 www.mda-mobiledata.org
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