For those of us who work within the industry, the answer to this is pretty obvious. However it is easy to assume that because some of us know what SMS is, everyone else does too. If you analyse the last 12 month's search engine data for the keyword "SMS", the most frequent asked question in the US relating to this was "What is SMS?" So here is a brief explanation.

SMS stands for Short Message Service. It is frequently referred to as text messaging or "texting" and is a method by which messages can be sent to a cell phone via another cell phone, a computer connected to the Internet, a regular land line, or a handheld device such as a Blackberry.

SMS has grown in popularity because it is a quick and convenient way of sending a short message to someone. One major advantage of SMS is that it is supported by 100% of GSM mobile phones.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, 90% of the world's population is covered by mobile networks and it estimates that 6.1 trillion messages will be sent in 2010. In many countries this explosion in popularity has been driven by the texting habits of teens. Research from Neilsen, suggests that in the US alone, teenagers send on average an SMS message every 10 minutes.

Businesses have been quick to realise the benefits of SMS too. Typical uses of business SMS include:

? Confirming appointment and deliveries
? Managing incidents, emergencies and sending systems alerts
? Customer service team communicating via SMS with customers
? Sending reminders to customers - such as insurance renewals, garage services, hairdressers etc
? Sending last-minute promotions to existing customers via SMS
? Communicating with employees internally

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