In 2021, mobile users in the United States sent roughly 2 trillion SMS or MMS messages. Following a sharp drop off in 2012, the number of SMS and MMS messages sent in the U.S. has generally increased over the past several years to another peak in 2020, during the COVID pandemic, at 2.2 trillion SMS or MMS messages.

This statistic shows mobile messaging volumes in the U.S. for selected years between 2004 and 2014. In 2010, approximately 2,109 billion messages were sent in total, up from 56 billion in 2004.

U.S. mobile messaging volumes - additional information

A total of around 2.2 trillion text messages were sent in the United States in 2012, marking an almost tenfold increase on the figure from 2006. A further 74 million MMS messages were sent in the country in 2012, an increase from 3 million in 2006. In 2013, the United States was the country with the highest average number of text messages sent per month and per mobile connection. Over 460 messages were sent monthly per mobile connection in the United States, in comparison to 188 in the United Kingdom and 122 in Germany.

The most active age group for sending and receiving text messages in the United States were those aged 18 to 29, as 97 percent of respondents said that they did use mobile messaging in 2013. By comparison, only 35 percent of those aged 65 and older said that they used their mobile phone for text messaging in 2013.

Rather than using a mobile phone’s integrated text messaging service, many users are opting for third party apps to communicate. As of January 2015, mobile messaging service WhatsApp had around 700 million monthly active users, marking double the amount of users it had in October 2013. Within the U.S. market, iOS and Android users spent a total of 680 million minutes on WhatsApp in February 2013, with those aged between 25 and 34 years most likely to use the service in 2014.

During a 2022 survey carried out among consumers from the United States, 47 percent of responding millennials stated they liked being contacted by brands via text messages. The same was true for 44 percent of respondents from Generation Z.

The number of text messages sent in Hungary fluctuated over the observed period. The lowest number was recorded in the second quarter of 2020 when approximately 259 million text messages were sent in the country. In the second quarter of 2023, Hungarians sent approximately 263 million SMS.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, 566 million SMS text messages were sent in the Netherlands. The number of messages sent fluctuated in 2022 and 2023, having dipped as low as 522 million in the first quarter of 2023.

This statistic illustrates the use of text messages as a communication method among different age groups and by gender in France in 2014. Texting proved to be more popular among males and was used by 46 percent of the male respondents.

This statistic depicts the share of staffing professionals in the United States using text message management software in 2018. During the survey, over 66 percent of staffing professionals reported that they use text message management software.

This statistic shows how many text messages people sent per day on average in Sweden in 2018. According to the survey, the majority of the respondents (52 percent) sent between zero and five text messages per day. 22 percent send between six and ten text messages per day. Nine percent of the respondents sent more than 25 text messages per day.

This statistic shows the frequency of sending or receiving text messages in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019, by gender. Of the female respondents, 57 percent used their mobile phone to send or receive text several times a day. Text messaging and instant messaging is a way to communicate without actually speaking to another person. This makes communication more thought out and detailed than in a voice call.

This statistic displays the total number of text messages sent in Serbia from 2011 to 2015. The number of SMS has seen a decrease since 2013. It dropped from 10.76 billion messages in 2013 to 8.69 billion messages in 2015. Factors such as instant messaging services or VOIP services could have been part of this cause.

This statistic illustrates the use of text messages as a communication method among different age groups and by gender in Italy in 2014. Texting proved to be more popular among males than females and was used by 31 percent of the male respondents.

This statistic displays the market share of text messages sent in Serbia from 2011 to 2015. Telekom Srbija was the market leader in terms of the number of sent text messages over the given time period. However, it experienced a loss of approximately 11 percent of its market share. Coming in second is Telenor with a total of 35.9 percent in 2015. VIP saw a steady increase and stood at 26.2 percent as of 2015.

The graph shows the monthly amount of text messages in China from June 2017 to June 2018. In June 2018, about 64.44 billion text messages had been sent in China. Text messaging in China – additional information

There has been a significant decline in text messaging after the total number of text messages sent in China peaked in 2012 at 897 billion. The decrease is even more noticeable in terms of text messages sent per person, taking account of the increasing number of registered mobile users in China. The reason for the continuous decline in text messaging is quite obvious; due to the growing popularity of smartphones and mobile internet, Chinese mobile users are preferring mobile messaging apps to share information. The usage of mobile message apps is almost universal among Chinese smartphone users; around 82 percent of iPhone users in China are using WeChat, for example, the most popular Chinese messaging app developed by Tencent. As of the second quarter of 2015, the number of monthly active WeChat users has reached approximately 600 million. Mobile message apps like WeChat are gaining rapid traction among Chinese users because they offer more than an alternative to texting. Voice messaging, also known as “push-to-talk”, was the most commonly used function of WeChat in 2014. One reason may be that Chinese language is relatively hard to type, so voice messaging could take full advantage in keeping the users hands free and saving a considerable amount of time. Besides, mobile message apps in China are even more appealing due to the inclusion of social media features: As of May 2014, about 77 percent of WeChat users had used “moment”, a sharing feature allowing people to exchange stories, photos and short videos among their circle of friends. Moreover, China’s instant messaging apps like WeChat are expanding their services in sectors such as gaming, commercial promoting, online shopping, and even banking.

The statistic shows the number of A2P (application-to-person) SMS messages sent worldwide from 2013 to 2020. In 2015, the total A2P SMS market stood at 1,067 billion messages.

This statistic shows the frequency of experiencing being unable to send or receive text messages with a mobile phone in the United Kingdom (UK) as of March 2014. Of the respondents, 8 percent experienced being unable to send or receive texts a few times a week.

This statistic shows the amount of text messages (SMS) sent by smartphone owners per day on average in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2013. In 2013, 43 percent of UK smartphone owners sent one to ten text messages per day.

The number of text messages sent from mobile phones in New Zealand in the 2023 financial year totaled 6.7 billion. The number of texts sent has decreased steadily since 2013, possibly due to consumers opting to send messages via online channels.

In 2022, the number of text messages sent in China amounted to 1.25 trillion. Despite the increasing popularity of WeChat, the number of text messages delivered had been increasing since 2018.

An October 2024 survey among adults in the United States found that around 44 percent of the respondents somewhat agreed to the statement that they would subscribe to text messages from a store in exchange for a discount on products. Meanwhile, the share of those who would rather not subscribe for any text messages in exchange for store credits, was notably lower.

This statistic shows the results of a survey conducted in the United States in 2019 about being broken up with via text message. Some 16 percent of respondents stated that they had been broken up with via text message (e.g. WhatsApp, SMS), email or social media message one time.