The Mobile Data Association has today released its 2009 mobile messaging review and the figures show continued strong growth in SMS and MMS messaging. 265 million text messages were sent on average each day throughout 2009, whilst MMS (picture messaging) volumes reached a total of 600 million by the end of the year. Annual SMS messaging volumes have increased by a staggering 23% from 2008 to 2009.
Despite regular stories commenting on the possible demise of SMS messaging, both its simplicity and ubiquitous nature, continues to win through with consumers and businesses alike.
This is certainly our experience at Esendex. SMS messaging has been mainstream for years now, but despite this, new businesses start to use SMS for the first time every-day, and once they do, they often increase their SMS volumes, add 2-way SMS messaging or start to communicate with different groups as they look for applications of SMS across new areas of the business.
We were amazed with the number of schools and colleges that contacted us during the recent bad weather wanting to use SMS for the first time to communicate with parents and staff. But we shouldn’t have been. We have been established in the market for 9 years now and it may feel like SMS is a well established business communication technology to us, but for many organisations, they are only just starting to realise the benefits.
The full press release from the MDA can be read here.
