Could the love affair that people have with SMS be coming to an end? Tero Kuittinen, a senior analyst at M.G.I. Research, found that text-messaging declined in a number of markets during the Christmas period when compared to last year. Depending on the market, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are typically the busiest days for text messages.
In Finland, at least two carriers saw SMS volumes decline this year. Sonera customers sent 8.5 million text messages during Christmas Eve 2011. This was down from 10.9 million a year before. DNA, a “more youth-oriented operator,” saw a drop from 5.9 million text messages a year ago to 5.6 million this year. In Hong Kong, Christmas Eve text message volume dropped 14%.
Kuittinen suggests that text-messaging could be losing out in favour of newer instant communication tools such as Facebook, Twitter and platform-specific tools such as BBM and iMessage. The trend is first emerging in the markets where SMS first took off in the mid-90s. In markets where it caught on a bit later, such as the U.S. and Canada, Kuittinen expects that similar declines will not hit carriers until later this year or next year.
Are you using SMS less now in favour of tools such as Twitter?
Read more: Forbes