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UK Gave up on SMS
British mobile users gave up on SMS and switched to online messaging services (Whatsapp, Snapchat) or mobile email. Industry experts confirm that the number of SMS sent in 2013 dropped by 7 billion and amounted to 145 billion.
For two decades of existence, it’s the first time that texting dropped in popularity. Industry observers claim that it’s a clear sign that the technology is on its way out. Apparently, the heyday of the text message is over and it had reached a tipping point.
In the meantime, use of mobile phones was stronger than ever and it is sure that trillions of instant messages will be sent instead of text messages. The main problem is that SMS is very expensive, compared to online services, where you just pay for traffic. In addition, apps like Whatsapp allow communicating with groups of people and enable users to send pictures and videos.
As you know, iMessage is free with an iPhone, and Snapchat is accumulating users rather than charging them. SMS costs money and is mostly used with elderly people who aren’t socialized online. The predictions are that the number of texts sent will fall to 140 billion in 2014, while the number of instant messages would rocket to at least 300 billion.
It should be noted that the UK has a close relationship with text messages: the first SMS was sent from Vodafone’s headquarters in Newbury in 1992, and in 1993 the first mobile phone capable of texting was made by Nokia, with the British sending a billion SMS a month by 2001.
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