Regular smartphone communication methods in major countries

Source:  Ofcom's International Communications Market Report, December 2015
Full document is here

Germany has gone past 'Peak Telephony'

"In 2014, fixed line networks saw 154 billion outgoing minutes in Germany which is 9 billion minutes less than last year. On the mobile side they've been observing an increase of 1 billion minutes. In total that's 8 billion minutes less than the previous year, which is about -3%. The trend has been going on for quite a while now. In 2010, combined fixed and mobile outgoing voice minutes were at 295 billion compared to 265 minutes in 2014. That's 11% less over that time frame."

Source:  Mobile Society, 22nd May 2015

Note - An earlier example of other markets

Data Volumes vs SMS Volumes in various countries

Source:  Tweet from Benedict Evans, 21st May 2015

The rise and fall of SMS messaging

Source:  Ofcom's International Communications Market Report, 11th December 2014

Weekly Reach of different media activity in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

SMS use is falling in China

"WeChat is pretty much ubiquitous in China these days, and the rise of the popular messaging app is seen in the huge impact it’s had on how people use SMS. Or, rather, how people have largely stopped using SMS. New figures from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) show that people in China send an average of 39.8 text messages per month – which is barely more than one per day (well, 1.3 to be precise). In these new figures for January to May 2014, MIIT says that people in China sent 314.62 billion SMS in that period, which is down 18.4 percent from the same period in 2013. In that timeframe, the nation saw 27.25 million new phone subscribers – but not even all those new accounts can stop SMS from dying off. The country now has a total of 1.26 billion registered phone subscribers, though a number of people have multiple SIMs. MMS – those annoying, often spammy, usually faulty multimedia messages – fell even more sharply. 26.09 billion MMS were sent from January to May, which is down 30.6 percent on the same period last year."
Source:  Tech In Asia, 23rd June 2014

The number of SMSs sent in the UK fell in 2013 (estimate)

"For many of us it will feel the end of an era: last year for the first time ever the number of text messages sent in the UK fell, with internet messaging services such as WhatsApp and iMessage continuing to overtake the traditional format.
The number of texts sent using the Short Message Service (SMS) dropped from 152 billion in 2012 to 145bn in 2013, according to estimates from Deloitte, whilst the number of messages sent using internet-connected services was thought to have risen from 57bn in 2012 to 160bn in 2013."

Source:  The Independent, 13th January 2014

What Americans do on their mobile phones

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Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, Cell Phone Activities 2013, 19th September 2013

Frequency of activities like texting carried out on smartphones and mobiles in the UK

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Source:  The Deloitte Consumer Review - Beyond The Hype: The True Potential of Mobile, June 2013 (UK data only)
Note - lots more stats in the full report - although I'd treat their assertion that 72% of the population has a smartphone with caution

More messages are sent through mobile chat apps than through SMS

"Chat apps such as WhatsApp and Apple’s iMessage have overtaken the text message as the favourite way to tap out a note to friends, undermining the traditional SMS cash cow for mobile operators.
The data, collected for the Financial Times by telecoms and media consultancy Informa, highlights the rapid rise of a technology that did not exist five years ago but is seen by some as a potential challenger to Facebook’s dominance in social networking.
There were more instant messages being sent daily by the end of last year than there were text messages, Informa said.
The consultancy expects “over the top” messaging to more than double to 41bn per day this year – more than twice the number of text messages expected to be sent."

Source: The Financial Times, 29th April 2013

A typical user looks at a mobile phone 150 times a day

"How Typical User Looks at Mobile 150 Times Per Day Globally
Messaging related 23 times per day
Voice call related 22 times per day
Clock 18 times per day
Music Player 13 times per day
Gaming 12 times per day
Social Media 9 times per day
Alarm 8 times per day
Camera 8 times per day
News and alerts 6 times per day
Calendar 5 times per day
Search 3 times per day
Other random web browsing 3 times per day
Charging phone 3 times per day
Voice mail 1 times per day
Other miscellaneous uses 10 times per day
Total 150 times per day"

Source:  TomiAhonen Almanac 2013, reported in a blog post by Tomi, 6th March 2013

Note - LOTS more data available in the blog post!
Update:  Mary Meeker used this in her recent Internet Trends presentation, and has been called out on it by SFGate.
"The person Meeker listed as the source for the slide, mobile consultant Tomi Ahonen, says he never saw any data to back up the 150 times-a-day number. It was a figure he had heard cited at conferences since 2010. The figures presented in Meeker's bar chart were "definitely only opinion," and "not intended in any way as a 'study' of consumer behavior."
Perhaps more significantly, his blog, in introducing the information, was clearly not discussing smartphones. It read: "What would a 'typical user' do with the non-smartphone today ... ?""

SMS usage per head is falling in China

"Chinese mobile subscribers sent 897 bln SMS messages in 2012, an increase of 2.11% YoY, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). China's total mobile phone subs increased 12.8% YoY to 1.1 bln, meaning the average volume of SMSs sent per mobile sub decreased by 9.45% YoY. China's mobile internet users increased 18% in 2012 to reach 420 mln."

Source:  Sina Tech, via Marbridge Daily, 28th January 2013

The first text message was sent on 3rd December 1992

"The first text message was sent on 3 December 1992, when the 22-year-old British engineer Neil Papworth used his computer to wish a "Merry Christmas" to Richard Jarvis, of Vodafone, on his Orbitel 901 mobile phone. Papworth didn't get a reply because there was no way to send a text from a phone in those days. That had to wait for Nokia's first mobile phone in 1993.
The first text messages were free and could only be sent between people on the same network, but in 1994 Vodafone – then one of only two mobile networks in the UK – launched a share price alert system. The arrival in 1995 of the Tegic (aka T9) system, which created "predictive" texting based on the letters you had typed, meant texting could take off.
Commercial services soon followed, and though they started life as a free service – because operators hadn't figured out how to charge for them – it was quickly realised there was money to be made from texting as the number rose dramatically. By February 2001 the UK was sending one billion texts a month, which at the standard 10p-a-text charge meant the business was raking in about £100m a month.
The amount of data in a text message is tiny, at just 128 bytes. Charged at the same price per byte, a 650MB music CD would cost more than £60,000."

Source:  The Guardian, 2nd December 2012

Texting is in decline in the US

"In countries around the world, text-message traffic has been shrinking because Internet-powered alternatives are becoming so widely used. American carriers have fought off the decline — until now.
For the first time, the American wireless market saw a decline in the total number of messages sent by each customer each month, according to a report published Monday by Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst who is a consultant for wireless carriers. In the third quarter of this year, cellphone owners sent an average of 678 texts a month, down from 696 texts a month in the previous quarter.
Though that’s a small dip, the change is noteworthy because for several years, text messaging had been steadily growing in the United States. Mr. Sharma said it was too early to tell whether the decline here would continue, but he noted that Internet-based messaging services, like Facebook messaging and Apple’s iMessage, had been chomping away at SMS usage. He said the decline would become more pronounced as more people buy smartphones. A bit more than 50 percent of cellphone owners here have smartphones."

Source:  New York Times, 12th November 2012

The growth in phone calling & text messaging by kids in the UK

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

There are 193m 3G subscribers in China

"China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released its August 2012 telecom industry statistics. The figures for the month were as follows:
[...]
Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 9.21 mln in August to reach 1.354 bln. Mobile subscribers grew by 10.21 mln to 1.072 bln, and fixed-line subscribers dropped by 1.01 mln to 282.18 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscriber base decreased by 678,000 to 268.39 mln, while the PHS subscriber base declined by 328,000 subs to 13.79 mln. 8.80 mln new 3G subscribers were added in August to reach a total 3G user base of 192.56 mln.
A total of 73.07 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of August, bringing the total for the first 8 months of 2012 to 597.58 bln, a 3.9% increase over the figure during the same period of 2011.
Broadband added 1.86 mln new registered users in August to reach a total of 168.29 mln. Dial-up decreased by 1.02 mln users, reducing the total dial-up user base to 4.70 mln."
Source:  MIIT via Marbridge Daily, 21st September 2012

Chinese mobile messaging app Weixin has 200 million users

"Chinese internet giant Tencent today announced that its Weixin (WeChat) mobile messaging application has crossed the 200 mln user mark. The app, launched in early 2011, exceeded 100 mln registered users 14 months later in March 2012, and reached 200 mln within six months."

Source:  36kr (via Marbridge Daily), 17th September 2012

Whatsapp delivers 10 billion messages a day

"Last October, BGR broke the news that WhatsApp was delivering 1 billion messages each day. This caused quite a stir, as it dovetailed with some mobile operator warnings about declining SMS volumes, most notably by KPN. On Thursday, just 10 months later, WhatsApp confirmed that it is now handling 10 billion messages a day — 4 billion inbound messages and 6 billion outbound. How’s that for a hockey stick? The disparity between incoming messages and outgoing messages highlights the popularity of the group messaging feature, which plays a big role in the app’s success."
Source:  Yahoo/BGR, 23rd August 2012
Earlier - 1 billion messages a day (Sent only)

There are 176m 3G subscribers in China

"Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 11.01 mln in June to reach 1.335 bln. Mobile subscribers grew by 11.26 mln to 1.052 bln, and fixed-line subscribers dropped by 249,000 to 283.31 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscriber base increased by 180,000 to 268.75 mln, while the PHS subscriber base declined by 429,000 subs to 14.56 mln. 9.08 mln new 3G subscribers were added in June to reach a total 3G user base of 175.75 mln.
A total of 75.21 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of June, bringing the total for the first 6 months of 2012 to 450.76 bln, a 5.2% increase over the figure during the same period of 2011.
Broadband added 2.50 mln new registered users in June to reach a total of 164.03 mln. Dial-up decreased by 9,000 users, reducing the total dial-up user base to 5.74 mln."

Source:  MIIT, via Marbridge Daily, 24th July 2012

Mobile ad spend by region and format, 2011

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Source:  Data from the IAB and HIS Screen Digest, reported by ClickZ, 6th June 2012