The use of for business purposes shows widespread adoption within the South African market, according to a pilot study by Webchek in July 2006. 95% of respondents reported receiving business communications via SMS while 75% received email communications for business purposes. Key findings were that respondents received on average:
3 to 4 relevant business SMS's per week.
35 relevant business emails per week.
6 irrelevant business SMS's per week.
7 irrelevant business emails per week - note that most PC's have spam filters installed, while most mobile phones do not.
61% of respondents were happy to receive business communications via e-mail, and 50% of respondents were happy to receive business communications via SMS.
The other findings from the research are:
Overall, users report lower volumes of business communications via SMS than email but more respondents report having received business communications via SMS.
The financial services sector use SMS more than email to send business communications.
After financial services, the retail sector makes the most use of SMS for business communications.
35% of respondents reported receiving internal work communications via email while 15% received these communications by SMS.
Less than 15% of all respondents receive fewer than 6 business SMS's per week.
More than 30% of respondents receive more than 50 business emails per week.
More respondents received irrelevant business emails than SMS communications.
Respondents do not like receiving irrelevant advertising messages from businesses.
The main conclusion of the study is that the use of SMS will continue surpass email as a tool for three reasons:
SMS is a ubiquitous communication medium as more people have access to cell phones than the Internet or email.
SMS is immediate as a text message arrives nearly instantaneously on a targeted user's cell phone.
SMS generates less spam due to the fact that the cost of SMS is kept above a certain threshold. Most spam is eliminated as the sender pays for the communication.
The study bring the spotlight on a key feature of fixed to from C21 Communications, exclusive provider in the UK and Ireland of Topex NGN equipment and Fixed Cellular Terminals.
Business SMS automation and convergent messaging is a feature common to C21communications/ Topex Fixed Cellular Terminals and GSM/UMTS Gateways. It enables SMS to email and email to SMS messaging, bulk SMS and SMS triggered callback.