All number of the Chinese mobile SMS was 0.5% growth in the first quarter, but 1-to-1 SMS was 10.9% negative growth.

I reported "Chinese mobile SMS was substantially negative growth in 2012" before, but MIIT published the new report about it a few days ago.

According to the report, the total number of Chinese SMS was 232.14 billion cases in the first quarter, and it was 0.5% growth compared to last year. But the number of 1-to-1 SMS was 124.74 billion cases, and it was 10.9% negative growth compared to last year.

In China, there are two main use pattern of SMS. One of them is used as the marketing tool by a company, and they send the marketing information to many people via SMS. And another one is used as the method of 1-to-1 communication, many people send their update information via SMS to friend, family and so forth.

As a result, it can be said that mainly 1-to-1 SMS was affected by WeChat or other similar services at this time. But 1-to-N SMS may be also possibly affected as same as 1-to-1 SMS in near future, because Tencent is providing the marketing tool of WeChat, and its marketing method is becoming popular day by day in China.



China Mobile and China Telecom already started each countermeasure, but after seeing this results, they must also start the other countermeasure that is including "charge the special fee for WeChat".

We have to continue watching the action from both side.


Source => TechWeb, MIIT