LONDON-More than 50 billion short message service text messages were sent over the world’s GSM networks in the first three months of 2001, the GSM Association reported. The association said the growth in SMS-from 1 billion messages per month in April 1999 to an average of more than 16 billion messages per month in 2001-proves SMS is not a passing trend.
“Today the visual message is as powerful and popular as voice,” said Rob Conway, chief executive officer of the GSM Association.
In the beginning of the year, other European agencies had reported a decrease in SMS messaging, sparking a debate about whether the SMS market had topped out with increasingly high mobile penetration rates.
However, the GSM Association credited the growth to SMS being a universally available service, the ubiquity of GSM handsets, interworking between networks and roaming agreements, more lifestyle applications and competitive pricing and promotions.
