UK - Survey finds consumers send 50 SMS/week, doubled in 4 years

OFCOM reports the UK is now using SMS more than talking.

Text-based communications are surpassing traditional phone calls or meeting face to face as the most frequent ways of keeping in touch for UK adults.

The average UK consumer now sends 50 texts per week – which has more than doubled in four years – with over 150 billion text messages sent in 2011

UK households now own on average three different types of internet-enabled device:

• laptop
• smartphone and
• Internet-enabled games console

15 per cent of homes own six or more devices.

Four in ten (39%) adults now own a smartphone, a 12 percentage point increase on 2010. Forty-two per cent of these now say that their smartphone is the most important device for accessing the internet, with over four in ten (42%) regularly using social networking sites and half (51%) using e-mail.