Text Message Statistics - October 2009

October 7, 2009

Text messaging continues to be enormously popular in the US reaching new levels every month.

More than 740 billion text messages carried on carriers’ networks during the first half of 2009. That’s an average of 4.1 BILLION text messages sent/received each day. That’s nearly double the number from last year, when only 385 billion text messages were reported for the first half of 2008.

Wireless subscribers are also sending more pictures and other multi-media messages with their mobile devices—more than 10.3 billion MMS messages were reported for the first half of 2009, up from 4.7 billion in mid-year 2008. MMS stands for MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and more commonly referred to as ‘Picture Messaging’ to subscribers. iPhone users in the US recently received access to MMS through AT&T last month (read our post: iPhone finally gets MMS). For more information on MMS, see What is MMS post.

Just last year, Nielson Mobile released important trends showing how Texting outpaces Voice as the number one activity on a cell phone.

For the latest CTIA Wireless Carrier Survey, click here.