Interesting Facts about SMS

10 April 2014

To celebrate the humble text message, we thought we would collect 13 great statistics.

  1. The very first text message was sent in 1992 on the 3rd of December by a 22-year-old software programmer from Reading to send the festive message- “Merry Christmas”.
  2. Texting is now the second most common use for a mobile phone. The first is for checking the time and the internet usage is quickly growing
  3. There are twice as many active SMS users in the world than active users of email. Evidence that SMS marketing is still an effective penetrative marketing strategy.
  4. In 2008 British surgeon David Nott, was volunteering in the Congo and performed a life-saving operation. Amazingly, he received a step-by-step instruction on how to perform the surgery via text message. You’ll be pleased to hear that the operation was a success.
  5. Sending patients text reminders about doctors’ and dentists’ appointments could save the NHS up to £150million a year. If you are looking to save your business money, feel free to call our customer advisors on 08451 221 302 for more information on SMS appointment reminders
  6. 96% of UK smartphone owners use SMS
  7. The SMS inventor Matti Makkonen didn’t seek a patent the idea, as he didn’t believe he’d made a “patentable innovation.” He hasn’t made a dollar on the product since.
  8. Response rates via SMS are 8 times that of email
  9. Text messages are usually read within 15 minutes of being received and responded to within one hour. With TextAnywhere’s service we allow you to see all of your responses in one single report, and give you the option to post a reply. For more information please call our customer service team on 08451 221 302
  10. In November 2004 Tony Blair became the first prime minister to use text messages to answer questions from voters
  11. SMS is the most widely used data application in the entire world’. Approximately 3.7 billion users around the world send and receive SMS
  12. Texting is more popular than voice calling, especially among youths aged 16 to 24
  13. Twitter was inspired by SMS! Twitter’s blog explains that they will “continue to embrace this simple but ubiquitous technology. In fact, Twitter’s 140-character limit was designed specifically to allow for any tweet to be read in its entirety whether you’re using a rudimentary mobile phone, or a more sophisticated Internet enabled device.”

 

Sources:

  • http://www.express.co.uk
  • http://www.factbrowser.com
  • http://souktel.org/
  • http://www.zawya.com/
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com
  • http://www.bbc.co.uk
  • https://blog.twitter.com/company
  • http://www.business2community.com

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