GLOSSARY: SMS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is commonly known as texting.

It's a way to send text-only messages of up to 160 characters between phones.

It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text messages. An intermediary service can facilitate a text-to-voice conversion to be sent to landlines.

SMS technology originated from radio telegraphy in radio memo pagers that used standardized phone protocols. These were defined in 1986 as part of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) series of standards.

The first test SMS message was sent on December 3, 1992, when Neil Papworth, a test engineer for Sema Group, used a personal computer to send "Merry Christmas" to the phone of colleague Richard Jarvis.

SMS rolled out commercially on many cellular networks that decade and became hugely popular worldwide as a method of text communication.

By the end of 2010, SMS was the most widely used data application, with an estimated 3.5 billion active users, or about 80% of all mobile phone subscribers.

In 2022:

70% of consumers opted in to receive texts from businesses.

61% of consumers say they want the ability to text a business back.

55% of businesses text their customers.

33% consumers check their text notifications within one minute of receiving a text.

Over half of consumers (51%) reply to a text message within 1-2 minutes.

Over half of consumers check their text messages 11 times a day or more.

On an average day, consumers check their text messages more than any other app on their phones.

SMS is often used as part of two-factor authentication.