Text messages will be obsolete within the next five years, according to new research from Gartner.
Although there are currently 114 million text messages sent daily in the UK, Gartner says that due to wireless internet technology coming down in price, more mobile phone handsets will include online technology and therefore more users will move from text to email.
Monica Blasso, Gartner vice president, said: “By 2012, wireless e-mail products will be shipping in larger volumes at greatly reduced prices.”
Gartner predicts that the continued proliferation of wireless technology means that even the cheapest handsets will come with wireless options.
At the start of this year, the Mobile Data Association (MDA) said that the number of mobile phone users accessing the internet on their handsets continued to grow during the last quarter of 2006, with an overall total of 45.6 million unique users recorded as having used their phones for downloads and browsing the mobile internet in the UK throughout October, November and December, an average of 15 million each month. These figures showed a quarterly increase in the average unique users per month from 13 to 15 million (see Mobile Internet User Numbers Grow).
Other research from the MDA had revealed that there were over four billion text messages sent in the UK during December 2006 (see Record 4 Billion Texts Sent In December).
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