3 Posts about 'SMS'
The LG Mobile World Cup :: 2008/11/02 14:51
According to market research company Gartner, text messaging is expanding at an explosive rate. This year, people will send an estimated 2.5 trillion text messages and this number is expected to surpass 5.6 trillion by 2012. For perspective, every people will send about 6.7 billion text messages per day this year.
As the popularity of text messaging has risen, phone manufacturers are trying to make mobile handsets which are friendly for sending text messages. (Recently, another Korean handset provider, Pantech made a contract with AT&T in order to provide "World's Thinnest Qwerty Keyboard" Handsets.) As I mentioned on the post, "SMS Usage Patterns of Korean People", over 40% text messages are sent using usual computer with QWERTY keyboard. It means usual people are familiar with QWERTY keypad and, if handsets provide a similar keypad, text messaging would be expanded more. (Also, refer to the below post, "An Innovative Mobile Keypad!!!")
SMS (Short Message Service) Usage Patterns of Korean People :: 2008/08/05 14:01
I posted 'Catalyst for Growth of SMS Usage' in last April. I found an interesting article regarding the post.
Recently, K Research, a research firm specialized in IT & mobile, conducted a survey about SMS usage patterns of Korean people. There was a question about how to use SMS and very interesting result was identified. The question is "How do you send SMS?" You guys might think that most of people send SMS using mobile handsets. HOWEVER, 40 percent of Korean people use instant messenger for sending SMS.
Age
By Instant Messenger
By Mobile Handset
Middle School Students
13.4%
86.6%
High School Students
10.9%
89.1%
20 ~ 24 yrs
17.9%
82.1%
25 ~ 29 yrs
30.0%
70.0%
30 ~ 39 yrs
45.7%
54.3%
40 ~ 49 yrs
48.9%
51.1%
50 ~ 64 yrs
43.7%
56.3%
Total
42.9%
57.1%
Most of young people under 29 years old prefer mobile handset to instant messenger to send SMS. Because they usually stay in school or enjoy wlaking on street. However, many people over 30 years old use instant messenger such as NateOn for sending SMS. Those people usually stay in office and work in front of computer. When they get a message or want to send a message, it is very convenient to use the instant messenger on computer.
Catalyst for Growth of SMS Usage :: 2008/04/29 17:38
NateOn is an instant messenger which has attracted the most users in Korea. In Korea, an average of 10 mil people use NateOn a day. (An average of 3 mil people use MSN a day in Korea.) NateOn is not a simple intant messenger but a constantly evolved messenger. NateOn is providing various additional function such as linkage between chat window and cyworld homepage of each user, keyword chatting and online radio service which provides public radio services on NateOn. Although the main function is 'chatting with a friend', people use NateOn in order to enjoy the other various functions.
Today, I will introduce a kind of NateOn functions, 'SMS service on NateOn'. If a guy registers his mobile phone number on NateOn, he can get message through NateOn messenger simultaneously when he gets the message on handset. If a message arrives in an user's handset when the user logs in NateOn messenger, a new window which resembles a chatting window of instant messenger is activated and the message is displayed in the window. The user also send a new message to the sender on the activated window. It is very convinient to use a SMS service because it is very annoying to input a message with handset keypad. Many office workers usually sit in front of laptop during working hour and use an instant messenger such as NateOn. The service makes these workers use SMS service easily and conveniently.
It is very convenient service, however you must be careful with the service. If you do not recognize that the service is not free ($0.02 for a message), you might see a surprising bill after a month. Because you send a message using NateOn more easily than usual handset, the amount of messages that you send for a month might increase surprisingly. The service must be a catalyst for growth of SMS usage.