Seems like Kenyans are busy “texting” as Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) records a total of 1.0 billion Short Messaging Service (SMS) sent in the period between January and March 2012. This represented a 13.4 per cent increase during the quarter under review as compared to the previous quarter (October to December 2011).

As the statistics indicate, the average number of SMS sent by each subscriber per month was recorded as 11.67, 0.96 more messages than that recorded in the previous quarter.

The increase in text messaging could be attributed to affordable SMS rates. Airtel Kenya and Yu Mobile for instance have a fixed rate of Ksh 1 for sending both on-net and off-net SMS. In addition to this, there are tariff plans that have been tailored to make SMS sending affordable to most Kenyans. Safaricom’s Maasaa ya SMS tariff charge Ksh 5 a day for 20 on-net SMS and Ksh 10 a day for unlimited SMS all day. Orange subscribers get 100 on-net SMS for Ksh 20 a day.

In as much as Kenyans love “texting”, the period between January and March 2012 recorded a decline in the number of Multi-Media Messages (MMS) that were sent. 1,517,733 MMS were sent during the period as compared to 1,723,544 sent in the previous period. This could be due to users preference to SMS and social media over MMS.

Are you part of the population that loves texting?

The above statistics were sourced from CCK 3^rd Quarter Statistics Report.