Mobile Phones – Calls not common anymore

It has been found that Britons no longer use their mobile phones simply for calling others whilst they are on the go.

There are increasingly more people who are using their phones to send text messages, take photographs and for searching the internet.

New figures have been released by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) showing that around 1.5 billion text messages were sent each week between January and May in 2008.

The non-profit organisation also said that the figures showed 30 per cent increases in non-call activities every year between May 2007 and May 2008. The company said that this showed how text messaging has really established itself as a powerful social connecting tool that is continuing to have mass appeal to mobile phone users.

The MDA expect to see the text messaging figures rise again in 2008 by another 30 per cent. They believe that this may be partly due to the promotion of all-inclusive tariffs, cheaper mobile phone deals and the introduction of devices that promote messaging applications.

Included in the study were the figures showing the growth of video messaging and also picture messaging. The amount of these multi-media messages sent has risen to more than 10 million messages being sent every week. This, again, shows a year on year growth of 30 per cent.

The MDA confirmed that picture and video messaging are really starting to gain popularity. This is believed to be as a result of the amount of camera enabled mobile phones around and also the improved and automated settings have helped make the process a lot simpler for the phones user. A lot of cheap mobile phones now have the capability to include a camera and therefore many more people have the ability to send these messages.

Mobile internet is still very young and as a result has not seen the same growth spurt that the text messaging forms have seen, but it is still expected to grow by 20 per cent in 2009.