The report finds that the average UK consumer now sends 50 texts per week – which has more than doubled in four years – with over 150 billion text messages sent in 2011. Almost another ninety minutes per week is spent accessing social networking sites and e-mail, or using a mobile to access the internet, while for the first time ever fewer phone calls are being made on both fixed and mobile phones.

Teenagers and young adults are leading these changes, increasingly socialising with friends and family online and through text messages despite saying they prefer to talk face to face.

According to Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2012, 96% of 16-24s are using some form of text based application on a daily basis to communicate with friends and family; with 90% using texts and nearly three quarters (73%) using social networking sites.
By comparison, talking on the phone is less popular among this younger age group, with 67% making mobile phone calls on a daily basis, and only 63% talking face to face.

The report shows that traditional forms of communications are declining in popularity, with the overall time spent on the phone falling by 5% in 2011. This reflects a 10% fall in the volume of calls from landlines, and for the first time ever, a fall in the volume of mobile calls (by just over 1%) in 2011.

To view Ofcom’s latest report please click here.

It was given new powers six months ago to try to help tackle the growing problem. But it admits it is just beginning to scratch the surface.

An estimated eight million spam messages are sent in the UK every day, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Spam texts are big business and can help makes millions of pounds for those involved in sending them out.

David Clancy is the investigation’s manager at the ICO and the advice from the ICO is to not respond to any SPAM text messages.

“Once they [spammers] have trapped your number they will then sell it into the [claims] industry,” he said.

“First users will pay £1, £1.50 for that phone number. A month later it will be distributed to lots of organisations for 50p, 20p, 10p a time. It makes a lot of money.”

But he says the ICO’s new powers are beginning to make a difference. They’re now able to execute search warrants when they think there may be evidence of spam texts being sent, compel mobile phone operators to hand over information and issue fines of up to £500,000.

He says the best advice is to not reply to any spam messages. “I’ve done it myself as part of this investigation,” he said.

“I’ve been contacted by numerous organisations offering me payment protection insurance claims, dent management claims and accident claims – don’t respond.”

While they admit it is impossible to filter out spam, mobile phone operators agree with that advice although they do have special text numbers that customers can forward any spam messages to. They’re then able to investigate the number which they came from.

Mark Brill is Chair of the DMA’s mobile council, whose research points to the figure of eight million spam texts being sent out every day.

“That makes SMS spam a serious problem,” he said. “We would encourage the ICO to continue their enforcement efforts and would like to see the UK operators to provide better spam filtering software.”

The study, conducted on behalf of the DMA which surveyed 4,400 mobile owners in Europe’s 3 largest economies as well as the US, showed that 38% of UK mobile owners prefer to receive promotional offers by SMS compared to 15% who favour the mobile web.

The figures were higher for those who prefer to receive promotional SMS in Germany and France, with 58% and 60% respectively naming SMS as their preferred channel for receiving mobile promotions.

The study also found that 40% of all UK mobile owners are interested in being contacted via mobile by advertisers and promoters.

Although smartphone penetration is very high in these countries, this study shows that mobile owners still prefer receiving SMS promotions.

The full report is available here.

Adam and Keith, two independent travellers who spent 6 weeks driving from the UK to Mongolia in an ambulance for charity, used the service where no internet connection or GPRS was available.  

As there was no data signal in parts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and no data signal anywhere in Mongolia, our solution was perfect for providing blog updates by SMS.

Adam and Keith are back in the UK now and this is what Adam had to say about Mobifi’s SMS to Blog service:

“The SMS to e-mail solution was perfect for my needs. It allowed me to send short messages to anything accepting inbound e-mail, all from simply sending a regular text message.”

At Mobifi we are always available to help our customers with their SMS requirements, wherever they are, even from the middle of the Gobi desert.

Although mobile operators are spending large amounts on rolling out high speed mobile data networks, SMS still remains a core service for mobile users and continues to contribute approximately 80% of their data and messaging revenues. Global SMS revenues are forecast to rise from US $105.5 billion last year to US $136.9 in 2015.

SMS is still the most popular messaging and data service and the simple reasons are because it is easy to use, low cost and reliable as well as having universal interoperability across all mobile devices and mobile networks.

Although traditionally used primarily by consumers, SMS is increasingly being used by government departments, banks and financial institutions, brands, retailers and transport providers, among others, for increasingly sophisticated purposes. SMS is used not just to deliver alerts, information services or mobile marketing campaigns; it is used to deliver appointment reminders, tickets, coupons, banking and payments, and loyalty programs, among others.

In emerging markets SMS is also becoming increasingly popular, in particular for the delivery of a range of financial services to mobile users who would otherwise not have access to banking products, for information services, and for other types of messaging services, including e-mail and instant messaging.

SMS can also add value to other services, for example, with enterprise applications and social media networks. With the huge increase in application usage, both commercial and consumer, SMS is seen as a complimentary service which can add value to these new growth areas.

SMS is still the easiest and most effective way to communicate with mobile users and will continue to remain a key mobile messaging medium over the coming years. Mobifi is fully committed to providing high quality SMS services to take your business further.

On the 23^rd of July 2011, two independent travellers will drive an ambulance (bought on eBay) 10,000 miles from the UK to Mongolia to raise money on behalf of the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation which helps orphaned children in Mongolia and Vietnam.

Adam and Keith needed a solution to help them update their blog whilst on their epic adventure. As GPRS/internet access is most likely to be unavailable in the remote areas of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Gobi desert, updating an online blog was a challenge.

However, Mobifi likes a challenge and we created a service which enables Adam and Keith to be able to update their blog by SMS so that their followers can keep up to date with their latest blog updates.

By using a Virtual Mobile Number (VMN or SMS long number), SMS messages can be received from anywhere in the world and the inbound messages automatically update the online blog. Mobifi’s service supports long/concatenated SMS messages so the blog post is not limited to just 160 characters.

Having tested the service, Adam said ‘I’ve tried it on iPhone and BlackBerry with o2 and Vodafone UK. It’s a great system.’

We wish Adam and Keith the best of luck on their journey and were happy to help out with the SMS solution. For further information about the charity drive, the blog and for donations, please visit http://www.followtheambulance.com/.

By sending encouraging texts, just over 10% of the smokers in a particular study had quit after 6 months, compared to 4.9% who did not receive the same level of support.

Mobifi has been working with the NHS and social marketing agencies for more than 5 years, providing the platform and services to deliver SMS text campaigns designed to help smokers quit.

In particular, Mobifi’s Appointment Reminder and Motivational SMS (ARMS) service enables organisations to run and manage their social marketing campaigns more effectively and with greater success.

For more information about Mobifi’s ARMS service please click here.

To read the article on the BBC website click here.

The website has been completely redesigned making it easier to navigate and providing a clearer description of the services that we provide.

Our success is due to the continued support of our customers and therefore we have introduced a case studies page and would like to thank our customers who have contributed to this.

The new website also provides information about our SMS Postcode Checker and SMS Appointment Reminder services which have been developed in-house as well as letting customers know that we also design, develop and deliver Bespoke SMS Applications too.

Also, we have decided to integrate our website with Facebook and Twitter to ensure that our customers and followers are always kept up to date with the latest developments at Mobifi and the mobile industry.

We’re delighted with the changes we have made and we’re sure it provides a better overall experience of our visitors.