In 2006, 300 Billion text messages were sent in China, 140 Billion were sent in the Philippines, and 40 Billion were sent in the UK. How does Canada match up? The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) has reported that just over 4.3 Billion text messages were sent by Canadians last year.

So, why have Canadians been slow to adopt this technology? Text messaging is far more popular in Europe and Asia primarily due to the high costs of voice communication; hence there is a monetary incentive to use text messaging. In the UK, customers who are with the mobile operator ‘Orange’, pay 75 cents per minute to call customers on a different network but only 25 cents to send a text message. Even without the monetary incentive that customers in Europe and Asia have, Canadians are still adopting text messaging at an alarming rate with unbelievable growth in year over year (.75B in 2004, 1.5B in 2005 and 4.3B in 2006).

Text messaging has become a worldwide phenomenon and is being used in unique ways around the globe beyond just person-to-person messaging. In Australia, the Bible Society translated all 31,173 verses of the Bible into ‘SMS language’ in the hope of spreading the holy word to a younger audience. In Indonesia, officials are working on a text messaging system to warn its residents of an incoming Tsunami. In the Philippines, text messaging played a significant role in the 2001 coup against former President Joseph Estrada. In India, text messaging is used for everything from cricket score updates to airline bookings and banking services.

Text messaging use in Canada is on the upswing. In 2004, ‘Canadian Idol’ began to allow voting via text messaging and has been extremely successful. Numerous services that push sports scores and stock quotes to mobile phones via SMS have been popping up. Recently, a small Canadian firm, txtreviews, launched a free service that allows users to get movie and book reviews on demand via text messaging. Amazon.ca book pricing information is also provided along with the review helping Canadians in brick-and-mortar stores make the right purchasing decision.

Although Canada still lags behind, text message growth has surpassed the expectations of everyone in the industry and text messaging services are increasing in popularity. Mobile operators now offer unlimited text messaging plans for a low monthly fee and it is predicted that Canadians will send out over 10 Billion text messages this year. All signs point to the fact that Canadians are joining the ‘texting’ revolution.