SMS is 30 years old. Between 1992 and 2012, it experienced a dizzying rise to then slowly but surely decline in the face of competition from online couriers. like WhatsApp, Messenger or Telegram. In 2012, 8,000 billion text messages were exchanged worldwide, compared to just under 5,000 billion today.
In Belgium, SMS appeared in 1993. Proximus (formerly Belgacom), which held a monopoly situation at the time, confirms the trend: “The golden age of 2012-2013 had some 40,000 text messages per day. Currently, the average is 22,000 daily text messages”said Haroun Fenaux, the operator’s spokesman.
A great tradition from the early years, text messages sent on New Year’s Day peaked in 2013.”We had reached the biggest peak with 4100 SMS per second at midnight. For comparison, in 2021, we were at 1300 SMS per second. While the Mobile Data volume is increasing every year“, adds Haroun Fenaux.
