The number of text messages per month decline – blame Apple’s iMessages

[dgstorm]

According to a recent report, people are apparently texting less these days. The trend was noticed by independent mobile analyst Chetan Sharma and reported by the New York Times. The information included in the article suggests that the number of text messages sent by users has decreased and with them the revenue companies cashed in. Why the decline, you ask? Well, basically because there are countless free or cheaper Internet-based alternatives users can now rely on.

The information posted by Sharma suggests that the average mobile user sent roughly 678 text messages a month in the Q3 of 2012. Compared with the 696 sent in the Q2 of 2012, it’s definitely a downgrade. This is the first time in the last few years that a decline has been registered in the text message field.

The steep slope that text messages have apparently embarked upon has been blamed on alternatives such as Apple’s iMessages or Facebook’s chat. The change of dogma is nothing of a shock really. At the iPad mini event, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that Cupertino clients sent more than 300 billion iMessages in the first 12 months since the service was launched. Apple users were both very prolific and very fast at it, as they managed to send 28,000 iMessages per second.

Apple’s texting alternative brings a little something to the usual SMS – it will allow users to get a message delivery confirmation and to also see when the other party is writing them a reply.

By Radu

Source - Text Messaging Declines in U.S. for First Time, Report Says - NYTimes.com

 

[Skull One]

Oh the irony. I had to move my daughter back to standard text messaging because I have 8 devices on my contract but only setup for 1 gig of data. She was actually eating into it with just iMessage!

 

[Skimonkey]

Oh the irony. I had to move my daughter back to standard text messaging because I have 8 devices on my contract but only setup for 1 gig of data. She was actually eating into it with just iMessage!

Skull this may be a dumb question...but imessages when used is considered data and not text? How does that work with someone who doesn't have an iPhone when texting back and forth?

 

[Skull One]

Skull this may be a dumb question...but imessages when used is considered data and not text? How does that work with someone who doesn't have an iPhone when texting back and forth?

If you send a message and it is in a blue bubble it goes against your data plan. When it is a green bubble it goes against your text plan. Incoming messages are still white and you have to look above the current thread conversation to see if the messages are going thru data (line iMessage line) or text (line Text Message line).

Since most of her friends have iPhones, she was using iMessage a lot. The killer is when she sends pictures. And she has been sending a lot of them because of her 5 month old daughter. New mommy and all. She was able to use 300 Megs in just one month because of that. Needless to say, it was cheaper for me to force her to use the unlimited SMS/MMS plan by turning iMessage off.

 

[Skimonkey]

If you send a message and it is in a blue bubble it goes against your data plan. When it is a green bubble it goes against your text plan. Incoming messages are still white and you have to look above the current thread conversation to see if the messages are going thru data (line iMessage line) or text (line Text Message line).

Since most of her friends have iPhones, she was using iMessage a lot. The killer is when she sends pictures. And she has been sending a lot of them because of her 5 month old daughter. New mommy and all. She was able to use 300 Megs in just one month because of that. Needless to say, it was cheaper for me to force her to use the unlimited SMS/MMS plan by turning iMessage off.

Thank you, Skull--that's very helpful. I won't have to worry now that I could have been using data instead of text when sending texts to my sister and friends!