Almost 200,000 SMSs sent every second: ITU

The popularity of text messaging has tripled in 3 years as 200,000 SMSs are being sent every second, says UN agency.

GENEVA: The popularity of text messaging has leapt three-fold in the past three years, with almost 200,000 text messages sent globally every second, the UN telecommunications agency said Tuesday.

A total of 1.8 trillion SMSs were sent in 2007, but in 2010, the number sent has jumped to 6.1 trillion, said the International Telecommunication Union.

This translates to revenues of 14,000 dollars (10,050 euros) every second and 812,000 dollars every minute, said the agency.

Users in the Philippines and the United States were among the most prolific, accounting for 35 percent of all text messages sent in 2009.

Texting tops with US teens

Market tracker Nielsen Co. on Thursday released data that showed how popular short messaging services (SMSs) are becoming, especially with US teenagers.

"If it seems like American teens are texting all the time, it's probably because on average they're sending or receiving 3,339 texts a month," Nielsen said in a release accompanying a study based on monthly mobile phone bills.

Mobile phone users ages 18 to 24 years old were a distant second place, typically exchanging 1,630 text messages monthly or a "meager" three texts per hour, Nielsen said.