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Text messaging in the U.S. is on the decline, according to a survey (PDF) released Thursday by CTIA-The Wireless Association. The numbers of SMS text messages sent and received nationally dropped from 2.3 trillion in 2011 to 2.19 trillion in 2012.
While 2.19 trillion may seem like a colossal number and not much less than 2.3 trillion, it is still nearly a 5 percent drop. According to a report released last week by research firm Informa, one of the reasons that texting may be declining is because several chat applications — such as Apple’s iMessage, WhatsApp, Viber, and BlackBerry Messenger — are becoming users preferred method of communication.
Text messaging really got going in the U.S. about six years ago, according to the Associated Press. While carriers used to charge users about 10 cents for each message in the past — that kind of pricing is now usually bundled into either text or data packages.
Even though there has been a drop in texting, it doesn’t seem like the practice is going to wither away. According to the Associated Press, the 2.19 trillion number still represents 19 text messages sent or received per person daily.
CTIA noted that its survey is put together from aggregated data from carriers serving 97 percent of all estimated mobile subscribers.
