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They have had a great innings, but the British sent 7 billion less text last year than than the year prior to, marking the text’s initially fall in use because the format was invented.
That doesn’t indicate we are talking less though, with WhatsApp, Snapchat, BBM, iMessage, Facebook Messenger as well as Twitter taking the SMS’s business. The number of IMs sent out in 2013 leapt up to 160 billion from 57 billion in 2012.
Deloitte, whose research foretold the decline, thinks it’s only getting even worse for the SMS however that we will remain to send an increasing number of messages through other ways.
Text time
The firm states that we sent out 145bn text messages in 2012, and thinks that’ll fall more to 140bn in 2014. But Deloitte estimates that 300bn instant messages will be sent in 2014 – meaning that 160bn will be app-based talk.
Instant messaging is set to be the biggest communication device on your phone, if Deloitte’s right. It thinks that IM services will ‘supercede text messages and all other types of communication, including e-mail and telephone call.’
Deloitte’s head of telecoms study, Paul Lee, informed The Guardian: ‘This is the first decrease in texting in the UK because texting was created. We’ve actually reached a tipping point. But the use of mobile phones to send out messages is stronger than ever.’
The dependable old text is not going anywhere though – and it’s the older generations that are keeping the SMS alive.
Deloitte’s research suggests that just 13 % of older smartphone users utilized instantaneous messaging last year – which is no real surprise when the forecast is that a quarter of senior citizens won’t even download a single app in 2014.