USA SMS Text Messaging is doubling

USA SMS Traffic Almost Doubled in 2006 - reportThe USA's wireless trade association, CTIA has announced that wireless data service revenues for 2006 rose to US$15.2 billion. This represents a 77% increase over 2005, when data revenue was US$8.6 billion. Data revenue represents money that wireless carriers earn on services other than voice. Wireless data revenues now total roughly 13% of all wireless service revenues. "Wireless broadband is providing mobile subscribers with the ability to access content like never before," said CTIA - The Wireless Association President and CEO Steve Largent. "Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission reported that 59% of all new high-speed lines were wireless. Wireless broadband is growing faster than cable and DSL combined and because of that fact subscribers are accessing new and exciting types of content on their mobile devices."The survey also found that text messaging continues to be enormously popular, with more than 158 billion messages sent in 2006. This represents a 95% increase over 2005. Wireless subscribers are also sending pictures and other multimedia messages in droves, with more than 2.7 billion MMS messages sent in 2006, up from 1.1 billion in 2005.The foundation for these strong results is a near record increase in wireless subscribership. As of December 2006, the industry survey recorded more than 233 million wireless users. This represents a year-over-year increase of more than 25 million subscribers. The industry's 12-month record for subscriber growth was reached in 2005, when 25.7 million new users came online.Other highlights of the survey include: wireless customers using more than 1.7 trillion minutes in 2006, up 20% over 2005, and generating more than $125 billion in total wireless revenues.The Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey is completely voluntary and thus does not yield a 100% response rate from all service providers. You can download some charts from the report from the CTIA website (pdf file - 10 pages).