For the first time ever the number of text messages sent has fallen, with instant messaging apparently taking over as the way we communicate with our family and friends.
Deloitte‘s latest technology predictions report shows an estimated 145 billion SMS messages were sent in 2013 in the UK, seven billion less than in 2012.
In the same period 160 billion instant messages were sent, a huge jump from 57 billion in 2012.
In 2014 they predict the number of traditional texts will continue to fall, but a staggering 300 billion instant messages will be sent.
Gareth Beavis from TechRadar said: “I think instant messaging has been on the rise for a long time. It’s so much easier to use, there are so many more things you can do with it.”
“While text messaging will always have a place in the industry and in people’s hearts, there are going to be more things people want to do like send pictures and video easily, and with smart phones on the rise you can do that much more easily now.”
Services like WhatsApp will out-perform SMS in 2014
But while instant messaging services – such as WhatsApp and Snapchat – may win the battle for volume, text messaging will be victorious in revenue terms, according to the predictions in the report, due to be launched on Tuesday.
Text messages are expected to generate more than £60bn in 2014, equivalent to approximately 50 times the total revenues from all instant messaging services.
They are also expected to generate significantly greater revenues until 2018, by which point global text message revenues are expected to start falling.
Deloitte’s figures also show that globally instant messaging services triumph over traditional texts.
They estimate that applications like BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat and WeChat will carry 50 billion messages per day – more than twice the number of messages sent by text.
The first ever text was sent on December 3 1992, when Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old British engineer, used his computer to send the message “Merry Christmas” to an Orbitel 901 mobile phone.
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