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Text messaging on mobile phones up 26% year-on-year

The volume of text messages sent by cellphone users nationwide saw a year-on-year increase of 26 percent to 1,256 billion in the fourth quarter of last year as mobile phone subscriptions rose, a report by the Institute for Information Industry said.

The report, released yesterday, said the figure represented a growth of 9 percent over the previous quarter. The average mobile phone user sent 54.7 text messages during the quarter and 18.2 text messages per month.

In the fourth quarter of last year, the monthly text message volume averaged 419 million. In December, text message volume hit a record high of 460 million, as sending Christmas and New Year’s greetings via text messaging increased in popularity, the report said.

The number of mobile phone subscriptions jumped 1.3 percent quarter-on-quarter to 24.3 million for the period, with the number of subscriptions per 100 inhabitants climbing to 105.8.

Mobile Internet subscriptions climbed 7.8 percent quarter-on-quarter to 11.86 million, or about half the country’s population. Almost 49 percent of mobile phone subscriptions included mobile Internet services.

The report also said cellphone users were gradually dumping 2G networks for 3G networks.

While 2G network subscriptions fell 4.2 percent quarter-on-quarter to 15.9 million, 3G network subscriptions rose 16.5 percent to 6.91 million, accounting for 28.5 percent of all mobile phone subscriptions.

With 3G subscriptions having risen at a rate of 3.2 percent to 3.8 percent per quarter, the institute predicted that the number would top 10 million by the end of this year, accounting for 40 percent of all cellphone subscriptions.

In terms of mobile Internet technologies, 55.1 percent of mobile Internet users chose 3G networks, compared with 32 percent using general packet radio services (GPRS), indicating that 3G networks are replacing GPRS as the mainstream technology for mobile Internet connection.
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