Last year 2008 saw the total global user base for SMS text messaging pass 3 billion. Today 76% of all mobile phone subscribers worldwide use SMS text messaging. Even the last hold-outs, the North Americans got into SMS partly through experimenting with votes on American Idol, but even more so with the Obama presidential campaign of 2008. Today more than half of Americans are active users of SMS text messaging and being fast learners, the US average has reached 4 SMS text messages sent per day across the total mobile phone subscriber base. This means the USA has caught up with average European SMS text messaging usage levels.
COMPARING WORLD'S MOST USED DATA APPLICATION
Three billion active users of SMS text messaging. Lets look a bit more deeply at that number. As we have reported here many times before, SMS texting is the most widely used data application on the planet. The active user base of SMS is three times the total number of personal computers - desktops, laptops and netbooks all put together. Even if we allow for all internet use, PC based and mobile phone based and all the access at internet cafes and university campuses and libraries etc, the total internet user base is 1.4 billion.
SMS text messaging is used by over twice the number of people who use the internet. Yes. This is a big opportunity. Lets first put SMS text messaging in perspective with other types of messaging activities. How near is email? Actually the global user base of SMS shot past email total user base seven years ago and today there are 2.5 times as many people on the planet who send messages using their phones, than send messages via the email system. Total email user base is 1.3 billion.
How about instant messaging? Thats big and growing bigger. Sure it is, but it is nowhere near a billion users yet, at about 700 million, worldwide. SMS text messaging is used by over four times more people. Individual social networking sites, like MySpace, Facebook etc totally pale in comparison. Facebook has about 150 million users. In fact the next largest messaging use, after SMS text messaging on a mobile phone, is now MMS picture messaging also on a mobile phone used by 1.35 billion people.
OTHER CONTENT AND SERVICES
Well, then lets compare to other measures. TV sets? 1.5 billion of those, so SMS is used by twice as many people as own a TV set. That should make many media execs stop and pay attention. Oh, but its not really comparing apples with apples, because broadcast analog TV is free, over the air. How many TV owners pay for the TV viewing, either as a cable TV or satellite TV subscription? All users of SMS text messaging pay for their service, usually paying per message. Yes, the paid TV viewing number is 850 million. Yes, people willing to pay for the fun of texting worldwide, is 3.5 times bigger than the number willing to pay for their TV programming. Every person who owns a TV set, also has a phone and most of the time, the phone within arm's reach when watching TV. No wonder TV shows like American Idol want us to vote via SMS.
How about newspapers? Well, only 480 million newspapers are printed daily, so SMS messages are read and written by - oh, and paid for - by six times as many people as those who buy a paper every day. Yes, a very large number it is. And news via SMS? That was launched nine years ago in Finland. Today 680 million people pay to receive news via their mobile phone, 42% more than pay to buy a newspaper. In many Asian countries one in three phone owners subscribes to a news service. And the majority of mobile news is SMS based.
What of money? Well, 1.7 billion people have a credit card, so nearly twice as many people can make payments using SMS - theoretically, as this ability is dependent on the network provider and only a small fraction of all networks around the world offer payment and banking abilities using SMS. But yes, talking about banking, how about any kind of banking account? That number is 2.1 billion. But SMS texting - which can do payments perfectly well - is used by 3 billion people. And SMS is now starting to become a major payment and banking system as well, pioneered in the Phlippines at the start of this decade and now used by more than half of their phone owners. In Kenya 20% of all people with some kind of banking or equivalent account, actually have only a mobile phone based SMS banking service. So SMS has already cannibalized 20% of banking in Kenya. That should get the attention of the odd banker who happens upon the Communities Dominate blog..
Cars? We hear of texting-while-driving, a very dangerous habit that is unfortunately a global phenomenon too. Yes, every car owner on the planet has a mobile phone, in the car, with them today. Every one of them. And the total registered cars worldwide? About 800 million. But SMS texting, nearly 4 times more users. So its not just the driver texting, odds are the passengers in the car do texting too..
SMS IS MOST PERVASIVE MEDIUM
The mobile phone is the first thing we see when we wake up (as the majority of phone owners use it as the alarm) and after we wake up, before we brush our teeth - we check our text messages. It is the last thing we see before we go to sleep. We set our alarm and then, not that unusual, as we are about to fall asleep, a late SMS text message arrives. Gotta read it. Could be important. That sweet sound of the inbound text message. A study in Belgium revealed that over half of teenagers receive messages at night and 20% report sleeping problems because they are regularly woken up by an incoming text message. So if you need to wake up your child, don't set an alarm, send them a text message in the morning.
TEXTING BREAK
And we also do very literally take the phone to the bathroom - and send messages from there. This always sounds at first, like the behaviour of totally deranged people. Until you examine why. Why from the bathroom? First, many feel they are doing too much texting so they are a bit ashamed that they have the urge now. Can be work-related. You promise your spouce that no more work tonight, but still have to exchange a couple of quick messages with the colleague who is still at the office, etc. So take the phone to the bathroom, nobody will see.
Secondly it is the sound and the silence. If you talk on the phone while sitting on the toilet, others may hear you speaking. But nobody will know if you silently tap a few messages and read replies.
Third is secrecy. This is similar to the first one, but now the motivation is different. Its not that we're ashamed of the need to text, it is that we have some secretive communications that we don't want others to know about. Maybe a secret lover for an adult, infidelity yes; or perhaps a new lover for a teenager that the kid does not want parents and siblings to learn about. Perhaps something more sinister like work related to the black market - always more black market work in times of economic downturns.
And lastly there is the safety. The recent study from Australia revealed that one in three partners will snoop inside their partners' phones. And they do it when we're in the shower or taking a bath. So all the more reason to take the phone with us, so the temptation won't win over in the minds of the perennially curious.
SMS CHANGES OUR LIVES
SMS text messaging is a radical new way to communicate and we at this blog have been examining it for years, learning of the strange twists about it. The average person sending an email expects a reply in 24 hours. The average person sending and SMS text message expects a reply in 5 minutes. That kind of stuff.
Or consider its length. The maximum length of a standard SMS is 160 characters, including the spaces. It doesn't seem like much. But the average European or American now sends 4 text messages every day. Ignoring the abbreviated text that is common in SMS, just using normal writing, and assuming the average text message is half the length of the maximum ie 80 characters, the average text messaging user creates so much text, that it would fill a normal paperback book novel in three years of daily texting. The average Filippino (the world's most active text messaging users who now average 26 SMS sent per day per mobile phone subscriber) would create as much text to fill a new paperback novel every four months.
And really heavy users? Teenagers who are really heavily into texting can average 100 SMS sent per day. That amounts to enough original new text to create a new novel every five weeks. No wonder teenager youth novelists in Japan all start out by writing mobile books. It comes naturally to them.
IS IT SERIOUS FOR WORK OR ONLY FOR KIDS AND PLAY
The Americans got really into SMS only last year, with the hype around the Obama campaign. The Americans will be bewildered by some statistics and facts about SMS. Teh rest of the world has known SMS for this whole decade. For example the Tony Blair government was reported to use SMS text messages during cabinet meetings, so that his ministers and advisors could communicate with individuals in the same cabinet meeting, without distrurbing the meeting; as well as sending for urgent data communicating wtih government staff that was not in the meeting, in real time, while the meeting was going on. This was in 2004. When I worked at Nokia HQ, we saw this as normal behaviour among our execs in meetings in 2000. And of President Obama's Blackberry and his Twittering and SMS addiction? The Slovenian Prime Minister was sending out cabinet agendas via SMS - in 2001.
It is the most widely used data application on the planet. Kids who don't qualify for credit cards, make payments at McDonalds and Pizza Hut and inside Habbo Hotel, using their mobile phones. In most parts of Africa and many parts of Asia and Latin America, if you want to communicate with another person, they won't have an interent connection or PC; they won't have a landline. But they will have a mobile phone and most will be active users of SMS. There even are services for illiterate people where someone will read and write SMS messages for you.
This technology is changing how we communicate. You need to understand it. SMS is not like email, not like Twitter or the Blackberry. SMS is a different powerful communication method that we all can use in work and play. And 3 billlion people alread do.
Alll data in this blog, source is Tomi Ahonen Almanac 2009. You may freely quote this blog, the numbers and the source; and you may freely link to this blog with no further permissions.
UPDATE - 5 February 2010: I have written a total industry statistics update. See the full Mobile Industry Stats 2010
Thanks for this great summary and interesting numbers you shared.
Posted by: Burcu Tüzün | March 06, 2009 at 06:49 PM
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Sarah
http://www.craigslistdecoded.info
Posted by: Sarah | March 07, 2009 at 08:22 AM
Its not a surprise. Mobile Marketing and email marketing are the wave of the future. We will see SMS being adopted more and more across the world.
Posted by: Matt Riker | March 07, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Thanks for the nice post! I wonder if you have the details for the two studies - the Belgian and the Australian - you're referring to. They seem like interesting reads. Thanks!
Posted by: Toni Paloheimo | March 08, 2009 at 07:49 PM
I really enjoyed your article, however this line took me by surprise: "Yes, every car owner on the planet has a mobile phone, in the car, with them today. Every one of them." That is a bit of an overstatement. Not EVERY car owner on the planet has a mobile phone in the car with them today. In my personal experience, I can name 7 people I know that DO NOT carry a mobile phone in their cars with them. And, yes, they are of the demographic that one would EXPECT to have a cell phone with them at all times. Yes, we could argue that these people are making a statement by not carrying their phones in their car with them and I would agree with you. I am just passing along a friendly observation that the particular overstatement was not necessary to support your case--your other numbers are staggering enough without having to over-generalize. Please know that my comment is friendly feedback. I very much appreciate the data in your article. Kelley
Posted by: Kelley Moore | March 09, 2009 at 08:27 PM
Thanks for the great, informative post with quantifiable data. As an internet marketer, I hope companies start seeing the benefits of embracing SMS as a means of communication to both clients and employees. It really does have the capacity to be leveraged as a communication tool to help facilitate and enhance relationships and customer service.
Posted by: Chris Puglisi - Digital Chris | March 10, 2009 at 05:48 PM
Hi Burcu, Sarah, Matt
Thank you for your kind commments.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | March 12, 2009 at 09:51 AM
Hi Toni, Kelley and Digital Chris
Good comments and questions. I'll respond to each of you individually here.
Toni - thanks. The Belgian study is Catholic University of Leuwen from around 2004 if I now remember correctly. It was quite widely refernced back then and I mention it in my recent books. We also have some mentions of it on the blog, so its kind of old news now, mentioned here more in passing and more recent studies have verified the mobile phone addiction.
Of the Australian study, it was (again I hope I remember now correctly, am writing from an airport lounge and don't have the data on my fingertips) I think Virgin survey of Australian users from 2008, might be April or May.
In either case, I have not read the actual study (I am not a sociologist, I'm a mobile business expert so this is more marginal to my interest, in monitoring the customer insights, while trying to maintain a deep knowledge of the actual services and revenues and profits of the industry) so I have only read the summary data reported in the telecoms press and blogs at the time..
Kelley - ha-ha, I like the argument and yes, obviously if one makes an absolute statement "every user" and you then respond with one example of non-user, I am proven wrong. You are right in a very extreme way of examining that statement. But I put it to you, that in every country today, the total penetration of mobile phones owned is larger today than the total ownership of cars. Also that all who own (and drive) a car (ie exluding the retired person who still owns a car but it is no longer registered and in use) in every country today, including even the USA and Canada - the two last laggard industrialized countries by mobile phone penetration - every car owner has also bought a mobile phone (with the absolute extreme exceptions, say of a mute person who is disabled so cannot speak, but has a license to drive a car?)
And then, every car owner, who has also bought a phone, will find the need to use the mobile phone daily. So now, the need to carry the phone with the person, transcends the moments one is in the car. I may not want to talk on the phone while driving, but I do need to have my phone with me later today, so it is with me, even perhaps turned off, but in my briefcase or pocket or handbag, while I drive..
Then, yes, there are some very connected people who want to "escape" the phone, and will deliberately seek opportunnities to be disconnected, and will deliberately abandon the phone. These people have moved beyond the connectedness, and they have once been part of the group who carried the phone everywhere, but today do not do so. yes, there are some of those.
Now one last point of clarification. A Blackberry is a smartphone ie it is a mobile phone (a cellphone) but many who use a Blackberry also have a second phone, so a typical American businessman may think of his Blackberry not as "his cellphone" and may think the Motorola Razr is his cellphone and the Blackberry is his "Blackberry". And many BB users are so addicted to their BB that they will "forego" the carrying of the alternate phone, and only carry the BB. But that still fulfills my definition. That user, if you ask him or her, do you carry your cellphone everywhere, may say no - but if you then ask the follow-up, do you carry your Blackberry everywhere - the same person says yes. In that case, this person does indeed carry a cellphone (the Blackberry) also in the car, while truthfully and honestly, that person would reply to your question, no he/she does not feel the need to carry his/her alternate cellphone everywhere (including always the car).
So far so good? Now to my argument. What you said, your 7 friends, probably was true a year or two ago. It may well be you honestly believe it to be true today. I would argue without knowing them, but from the 2008 statistics, that most probably, these 7 friends have very recently migrated to cellphones and very very recently become addicted to them. If you asked them last year, they would have answered as you expected. If you now in March 2009 call them up and ask them, do they have one cellphone, Blackberry or iPhone or whatever, usually with them, whether turned on or off, in the car as they drive, on a daily basis, you'd be surprised to find that most of them do. But also as you listed the specific 7 as a number, I do believe you do know these people very well, so perhaps one of them is your uncle who you know is totally against cellphones and keeps insisting he will never ever succumb to that stupid need of carrying one. There is an ever diminishing amount of these technology luddites in the world. They tend to be only found in Canada and parts of the USA anymore, you really can't find any in Europe or industrialized parts of Asia anymore. And their numbers are dwindling very fast in North America too.
And two alteranate chances. It is certainly possible that your friends have a strongly held religious or philosophical view about technology in general. I am thinking for example of the Amish in Pennsyvlania (but they would typically ride in horse-drawn carriages, not drive cars) and for example some extremely religious people like some Jews who have issues with using some technologies. And would you know it, there also are now mobile technology solutions for that, for example with Jews, there are mobile phone handsets and basic services, that are certified to be "kosher" ie religiously pure, by rabbis of the Jewish faith, etc. (I am not Jewish, this is just something I have read about as I observe regional differences)
The other obvious area is that perhaps your friends are very "artistic" people who have a philosophical interest and need to discard technologies and may have decided to deliberately not embrace mobile phones. I'm sure you can find 7 people in some extreme groups. But I also am totally certain, that if you stop 10 cars in London or New York or Los Angeles or Sydney or Moscow or Shanghai or Mumbai or Johannesburg or Rio De Janeiro, you get 10 car drivers who have at least one mobile phone in the car, and most of them, will have the phone also on and connected with the phone ringing "on".
But yes, if you stop 100 cars, you might find one in the USA or maybe as many as 2 in Canada who don't have a phone in the car. Maybe, on a lucky day. On another day, you'll get 100 drivers and 100 phones.
I have not done this kind of survey, obviously, it is my conjecture. It is based on the statistics and the addiction of phones and several universal trends. But I am guessing, that since you felt the interest to argue the point, you probably are in North America, and then, I will fully understand, that you would feel this way, because the change has been so recent, last year or two in America, that total mobile phone penetration exceeded total car penetration, so that you still cannot fully accept the statistic. |
I am not calling you a liar, please do not feel offended. I am sure you feel what you reported is true. I am very confident, that except for the cases I listed in the above (say mute people or people who for religious reasons do not own a mobile phone) if you actually surveyed your 7 friends, you'll find several of them, possibly all, already do behave as I explained. And also, that a few of them may mistakenly think that a Blackberry is not a cellphone so they'd reply to your question honestly and truthfully, without understanding what was being asked...
I hope this helps, and I am not saying I am 100% right, it is a continuously diminishing number of people and yes, out of 800 million registered cars in the world, certainly thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands will be still not carrying a phone. That is in the big scheme of things, less than one tenth of one percent. I am 100% certain, that globally the number today is less than one percent. For practical purposes, and any conceivable commercial uses, that means everybody. Statisticians tell us that when percentages fall under 2% they are undetectable by humans. So even if in an absolute numbers sense you are right, my general point does hold for practical commercial uses and needs. I hope we can agree on that?
Digital Chris - Thanks, yeah, we agree. And its a strong growth opportunity. I also like to add that the two are not mutually exclusive, a good campaign uses both digital channels and the strengths of each. Mobile is not the "final mass media" it is only one of 7 that will all co-exist into the foreseeable future. But mobile is the newest and youngest mass media, least understood and also, the one with the furthest reach and greatest potential..
Thank you all for writing
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | March 12, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Great post, some fantastic statistics. Our UK based company has been selling 'desktop SMS' services for the past 7 years, largely into the public sector: universities, colleges, schools, hospitals, police. We have message usage stats, day by day going back to the day we started. I can tell you from experience that growth in messaging is phenomenal. Comparing Feb 2009 to Feb 2008 use increased by 229%. And these are not small numbers to start with. The sales pitch for SMS: It is to the person, to the point, quick, discreet and inexpensive. Regards Steve
Posted by: Steve McCann | March 14, 2009 at 06:04 AM
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
http://desktopmemory.info
Posted by: Betty | March 18, 2009 at 04:54 AM
Worth noting that 1.5bn TV sets does not equal 1.5bn TV viewers
In emerging markets I imagine the number of viewers is going to be much higher than the number of sets
Posted by: Richard Helyar | May 08, 2009 at 12:33 PM
HI Steve, Betty and Richard
Thank you all for writing.
Steve, great stats and wonderful success. We wish you the best of success.
Betty, thanks.
Richard, good point. Note that also the reverse is true, that within the Industrialized World it is quite normal for a single employed adult to have two TV sets or more. Ie one in the living room, another in the bedroom. I would think that if we count the total viewing audience reach, in the Industrialized World it will be significantly less than total TV sets in use, but in the Developing world it will be even more the opposite, ie large families watching one TV set.
Then we get the economics. The Industrialized World has roughly speaking 1 billion people. So the TV population is overwhelmingly concentrated into the Industrialized World. And in the Developing World the TV sets tend to be with the small wealthy class and small growing middle class. These tend to have far smaller families (and get married later) than the large family poor populations..
Still, yes, probably the 1.5 B TV sets reach a viewing population of 2 B or so, maybe 2.5 B but nowhere near the 3.1 B total unique owners of mobile phone sets.|
Also it is worth noting one more part. The mobile phone unique owner population is very near a perfect match with consumers of "any disposable income" worldwide, ie a measure of the economically viable population, probably covering 98% of the planet's economic reach. The TV set population reflects TV owners - and this, smaller numberm reflects a more wealthy subsector of the global economy - every TV owner also has at least one mobile phone but most mobile phone owners today do not own also a TV set. Whereas the TV audience viewership includes lots of extremely poor family members (no jobs, no income) or very young kids who do watch Disney or Teletubbies but are not yet in the economically viable part of the economy. But once a parent gives a child a mobile phone, the child knows how to speak and usually also write, and even if not yet fully in the economy, is getting ready to join it.
but good point, Richard, yes, the total reach of TV is significantly more than just the owned TV sets, just like the total mobile phone owner number is less than the actual 3.4 B phones in use> We need to understand these nuances of these numbers.
Thank you all for writing
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi Ahonen | May 11, 2009 at 06:06 AM
Awesome! Some really helpful links in there. Bookmarked. Excellent source.
Posted by: pest control phoenix | October 15, 2009 at 08:48 AM
That was great article. I will follow your blog it has got lot of resources.
Posted by: Shreeweb | December 14, 2009 at 11:14 PM
I tried this code in my Joomla component. But I got an error message saying "Could not instantiate mail function".
I an undergraduate and developing a Joomla [url=http://www.ugg-boot-shoes.net/]UGG Australia[/url] component for my project. I have just deployed and running Joomla in XAMPP server. I don't have any mail server.
In Joomla installation, I've given my personal email. Is there any way to send emails ( just for the[url=http://www.uggbootstribal.com]Ugg Boots on sale[/url] purpose of testing & project demonstration) using my Gmail or other account?
Your reply would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Posted by: uggs | December 30, 2009 at 08:29 AM
I tried this code in my Joomla component. But I got an error message saying "Could not instantiate mail function".
Posted by: UGG Australia | December 30, 2009 at 08:29 AM
Also it is worth noting one more part. The mobile phone unique owner population is very near a perfect match with consumers of "any disposable income" worldwide, ie a measure of the economically viable population, probably covering 98% of the planet's economic reach. The TV set population reflects TV owners - and this, smaller numberm reflects a more wealthy subsector of the global economy
Posted by: Adidas basketball shoes | January 28, 2010 at 06:19 AM
Wow, thanks for the insightful post. I look forward to reading more from you.
Posted by: ugg boots | February 02, 2010 at 06:36 AM
Richard, good point. Note that also the reverse is true, that within the Industrialized World it is quite normal for a single employed adult to have two TV sets or more. Ie one in the living room, another in the bedroom. I would think that if we count the total viewing audience reach, in the Industrialized World it will be significantly less than total TV sets in use, but in the Developing world it will be even more the opposite, ie large families watching one TV set.
Posted by: buy viagra | February 15, 2010 at 09:23 PM
This only shows that almost everyone owns a cellphone and sending SMS is way more convenient and is very cheap.
Posted by: hiSunglasses Review | March 12, 2010 at 06:46 AM