SMS More Popular than ever in South Korea

Mobile messaging is at an all-time high in Korea, KTF said Wednesday. KTF (Korea Telecom Freetel) said the number of SMS (2.086 million) exceeded voice messages (2.047 million) after surpassing the 2 billion mark for the first time this year, seven years after it started the service in1998. Apparently, the SMS is very popular because it’s by far cheaper than phone calls, particularly when it is difficult to talk over the phone in noisy environments or for a host of other reasons. SK Telecom said that it saw the number of SMS increase from 1.358 billion last June to 2.813 billion this June, while voice messages remained almost unchanged at 3.849 billion from 3.813 billion on-year. Revenues for the three mobile operators earned from SMS rose by W86 billion (US$86 million) from W320 billion in 2003 to W406 billion last year.