The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) released some new data regarding text message usage in Canada, and it seems there is still life despite growth with smart phones and mobile apps.
According to their data in the first quarter of 2011, Canadians had sent 18 billion text messages, which is a 10% growth from the fourth quarter of 2010. Currently, over 200 million text messages are sent in Canada each day.
Other data points of interest:
- 6.2 billion person-to-person text messages were sent in March 2011 alone, which represents an average of more than 199 million messages per day.
- Total text messages sent in 2010 numbered 56.4 billion, a 60% increase over the 2009 total of 35.3 billion messages.
- Canadians sent and received a total of 697 million text messages using Common Short Codes in Q1 2011, marking a 11% increase over the 626 million messages sent and received in Q4 2010.
- A total of 2.3 billion Common Short Code messages were sent and received by Canadians in 2010, representing a 36% increase over the 2009 total of 1.7 billion messages.
With the increased number of wireless carriers in Canada, a 10% increase seems rather low, but perhaps it is due to the high costs of text and text-based plans in Canada. No wonder there is such a strong interest for the group messaging space such as Kik Messenger, or GroupMe who looks like they have been acquired by Skype for $85M over the weekend.
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