UK users to send 100 Million SMS per day in 2006

According to the Mobile Data Association (MDA UK), 2005 has seen text messaging go from strength to strength, with the communication tool now being widely adopted by the business community and consumers alike.

Based on the significant growth of text messaging witnessed during 2005, and the increasing diversity of applications currently being used for work related communication, the MDA has issued a forecast that figures will continue to rise in 2006 to deliver an annual total of 36.5 billion text messages for 2006, with an average of 3 billion messages being sent per month and 100 million per day.

Just released numbers show October 2005 setting another new record with 2.9 billion messages sent during the month and an average of 93.5 million text messages sent per day. Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators show an increase of 25.7% on the total sent during the same period in 2004.

In the last three months SMS usage in the UK has shown the same growth trend. Users sent an average of 87.3 million SMS a day during August 2005, growing to 89 million SMS a day in September 2005, up to the record 93.5 million SMS a day in October 2005.

SMS usage in the UK has grown from 12.2 billion SMS a year in 2001, to an estimate of 32 billion messages in 2005.