Home Mobile Messaging Reaches Record-Breaking Numbers

Mobile Messaging Reaches Record-Breaking Numbers

Mobile messaging is experiencing a period of record growth, according to some figures released from VeriSign earlier this week. Looking at the numbers more closely, some interesting trends emerge. Those include the use of messaging for social and political change, marketing, such as that done by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s mobile campaign, and the use of mobile messaging for charitable donations. Other sectors experiencing significant increases are the enterprise and financial institutions. In those two areas alone, mobile messaging has seen a 115% increase in only a year’s time, and much of that is thanks to the financial industry’s adoption of the medium for business to consumer communication.

According to new numbers being released by VeriSign, Inc., mobile messaging is a fast-growing trend worldwide. The medium experienced a surge here in the U.S. thanks to the recent presidential elections as Obama utilized the platform for making announcements, but that isn’t the only reason for the growth.

Explosive Growth

In Q3 2008, VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media Divison’s mobile messaging networks enabled more than 58.3 billion messages per day to travel through their pipes…10% more than in the previous quarter and up from 280 million per day in Q3. Based on these record-breaking numbers, VeriSign projects that their mobile messaging networks will enable close to 200 billion total messages by the end of the year.

Enterprises and financial institutions have seen growing numbers of mobile messages sent, too. From Q3 2007 to Q3 2008, the total number of messages delivered rose from 129 to 227 million – a 115% increase.

Much of that activity comes from SMS’s new position as the preferred platform for mobile banking. VeriSign’s Mobile Banking platform, which includes seven of the top ten banking brands and three of the top five credit card companies, has grown 35% since last quarter alone.  

Mobile messaging, as defined by VeriSign, isn’t just SMS, though. They take into account a number of different types of messages, including the following:

• SMS – Short Message Service. SMS is the most common form of mobile messaging, also referred to as “text” messaging.

• ICSMS – Inter-carrier Short Message Service. ICSMS messages are text messages exchanged between carrier networks.


• MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS allows users to send multimedia messages that include images, video and audio.


• ICMMS – Inter-carrier Multimedia Messaging Service. ICMMS messages are multimedia messages exchanged between carrier networks.


• P2P Messages – Person to person messages, or messages sent from one mobile user to another.


• A2P Messages – Application to person messages, or application-generated content such as news alerts, ring tones, promotional video clips, and enterprise messages that are sent to mobile users.

It’s interesting that even as the iPhone and other app-filled devices grow in popularity, when it comes to getting information quickly, we’re still turning to the mobile message – and now more than ever before. Will this trend ever level off as more people switch over to the smartphones whose “real internet” experiences no longer require text-based workarounds for getting the information needed? By the looks of these numbers, it doesn’t appear that will be the case.

Image credit: enV by Nesster

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