The State of Mobile: Less Talking, Fewer Texts, More Data

People generally talk less on the phone and send fewer text messages now because there are so many ways to communicate over an Internet connection. Though this may seem obvious to anyone who owns a smartphone, a new study confirms the trend.

Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst, released a study on the state of the global mobile industry. It found that overall text-messaging use is growing, but more slowly, and in some parts of the world, texting is in steep decline. American cellphone users are still sending more texts than before — about 680 messages a month in 2011 compared to about 640 a month in 2010 — but this growth is much slower than in previous years. Mr. Sharma said text messaging here could start to shrink this year. He said he combined the results from carriers’ financial reports around the world with some private data to come up with the estimates in his study. What’s causing the shrinkage? Messaging services that you can use over the data connection of a smartphone, as opposed to the carrier’s standard text messages. Apple’s iMessage, Google Voice and Skype provide this service.