Danish SMS traffic, for example, decreased by over 20 percent in the first six months of 2011, according to Strand Consult, and the trend will continue in 2012.
Text messaging revenue is not declining in all markets, but is slowing in most developed markets. The most-recent data from the CTIA suggests slowing growth in the U.S. text messaging market of about nine percent.
In the Danish market, three out of four mobile operators have been experiencing a steady decrease in their test messaging (short message service, or SMS) traffic month after month.
From 2010 to 2011, TDC experienced an SMS traffic drop of 17 percent, Telia lost 18 percent and Telenor 26 percent, while the fourth operator 3 was the only operator that had growth in their SMS traffic.
That 3 saw text messaging growth is largely attributable to the fact that 3 is gaining customers and share in the market. SMS traffic on the 3 network grew by 29 percent.
But, overall, the number of Danish SMS messages fell during the first half of 2010 to 6.4 billion and to 6.2 billion during the first half of 2011. That is a drop of about seven percent from 2010 to 2011.
Facebook messaging is the reason for the drop, Strand Consult argues..
So what are Danish operators doing? They are bundling mobile broadband with SMS and MMS packages as part of a smart phone purchase. That means service providers get paid even as the volume of text messages declines.
