Chat apps seem to end SMS reign

Chat apps have surpassed text messaging for the first time ever, according to new data.

Research firm Informa, in partnership with The Financial Times, has revealed 19 billion messages were sent each day in 2012 via chat apps compared to 17.6 billion from SMS. This highlights the huge growth chat apps have experienced recently as users look to avoid SMS fees, and those numbers are only projected to grow.

Informa believes chat apps will receive 50 billion messages each day by 2014 compared to 21 billion texts. The increase is in part due to the proliferation of smartphones.
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But many consumers, especially in less developed regions, will continue to rely on traditional mobile phones and text messages in the years ahead, the firm suggests.

WhatsApp, which allows you to send private messages to phone contacts for free, is among the most popular chat apps. The company said earlier this month it has more than 200 million monthly users, more than 8 billion inbound messages a day and about 12 billion outbound.

Last week, Nokia added a WhatsApp button to its new Asha 210 smartphone, the first phone to do so. Meanwhile, it was recently rumoured that Google was in talks to buy the popular messaging app for an offer close to $US1 billion.

Mashable is the largest independent news source covering digital culture, social media and technology.


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