Nielsen has noticed the massive use of texting by teens.
American teenagers are using 3,146 messages a month, which
translates into more than 10 messages every hour of the month that they
are not sleeping or in school. Even the under 12 segment are sending
1,146 messages per month, which is almost four text messages per waking
hour that they are not at school.
The holidays were busy for teen texters. While the 13-17 year old age bracket is already highly saturated,
the last holiday season was good to the under 12 segment when it came
to text messaging. A full 8 percent increase in SMS usage was measured
combined with a near doubling in text message volume for that segment
in the following quarter (Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are late in
December, so usage increases will be recorded in Q1).
Only a very small percentage of
people who text message are doing so on a pay-as-you-go basis at the 20
cent per message rate with the vast majority of users subscribing to
plans. On plans wireless customers are
actually paying only 1 penny per message.
Overall, text message usage is also expected to grow as the heavy text
messaging population ages and entices the older generations to text
with them in order to stay in contact with them as any parent of a
teenager can probably attest to.
The average text message number has
increased every year, but the huge room for growth that is still
remaining has been underestimated given the penchant for texting among
the 17 and under segment.
More facts are found on the
Nielsen blog.
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