How Many Texts Are Sent Per Day? In-Depth Texting Statistics and Analysis

Text messaging has been around since the 1990s, and it remains one of the most widely used forms of communication today. While texting was originally just a means of sending quick messages back and forth between friends and family, it now includes text message marketing, two-factor authentication processes, and more. With this all being said, how many texts are sent per day?

Given how many uses we have for text messages today, how many texts do mobile phone users send each day worldwide? The numbers are even bigger than you might think, and they raise some interesting questions about the future of texting. How have our habits changed over time, and how will they lead us into the future?

How Many Text Messages Do Smartphone Users Send on a Daily Basis?

Worldwide, we send around 25 billion text messages every single day. That’s roughly three texts per person for the entire world’s population, or about 275,000 texts every second. These numbers include all three popular forms of text messaging: Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), and Rich Communication Services (RCS).

SMS messages have been among the world’s most frequently used forms of text communication since 2010, and there are still billions of SMS messages sent every day, even with heavy competition from MMS, RCS, and messaging apps. Speaking of messaging apps, if you were impressed by the number of texts sent daily, you’ll really get a shock when you learn how frequently people use WhatsApp!

Texting vs. Messaging Apps

Traditional text messaging is still highly popular in just about every corner of the globe, but it no longer keeps pace with the incredible volume of messages sent via app-based messaging. WhatsApp users alone send over 140 billion messages per day, averaging out to a whopping 17.5 WhatsApp messages per day for every single person alive right now.

Facebook Messenger isn’t too far behind either, as people send over 100 billion messages per day on this platform as well. When you add in the 45+ billion daily messages sent over WeChat — China’s most popular instant messaging application — there are roughly 185 billion messages transmitted just on these three apps every day of the week. That’s nearly one message per hour for each one of the planet’s 8+ billion current residents!

Regional Differences in Text Message Frequency

While the total number of texts per day in the United States has dipped slightly over the years, it’s still an incredibly high volume. Texting in the U.S. peaked in 2011, when we were sending 2.3 trillion texts per year. That number really hasn’t changed too much, even considering the influx of app-based texting. Today, Americans still send more than 2 trillion texts annually, or somewhere around 6 billion messages per day.

Interestingly, texting across the pond in the United Kingdom has been on a steady downward slope for over a decade. Back in 2012, Brits were sending over 150 billion texts per year. However, today, that number is around 35 billion. This is likely at least partially due to the fact that the U.K. adopted WhatsApp earlier and at a higher volume than the U.S. did.

China is another fascinating case study, as texting there is more popular than ever. Despite the fact that Chinese people send nearly 50 billion messages per day on WeChat, texting still accounts for roughly 1.3 trillion messages per year. By contrast, that number was just 664 billion in 2017, so text message volume in China has increased by roughly double in that time period.

Worldwide, more than half of all people send and receive many texts per day, and around 80% check their text notifications within five minutes or less. We’re more interconnected today than ever before!

Generational Differences in Text Message Frequency

Texting habits also vary considerably based on your age group. Younger people — including Millennials and Gen Z — have much higher adoption rates for app-based messaging. They’re more likely to use WhatsApp than SMS messages, and they usually only use texting for business messages, verification codes, and texting their parents (and other people from older generations).

On the other hand, Gen X and Boomers still use SMS as their primary means of text-based communication. These older users are slowly increasing their usage of other messaging apps, but the average person in these age groups still focuses heavily on texting.

Another difference is in message length, as older users tend to send fewer, longer texts, while younger users send shorter and more frequent texts. This drives up the pure volume of messages from younger generations, which helps explain why apps like WhatsApp have such massive volumes of daily messages.

Text Message Marketing and Other Business Applications

As we mentioned earlier, texting isn’t just for personal use cases anymore. Today, businesses use texting in many different ways as well. The SMS marketing market has grown steadily over the years — today, over 70% of all businesses say they use text messaging in some fashion to contact their customers.

Transactional business texts are now commonplace, as we’ll receive text messages for things like shipping notifications, purchase confirmations, appointment reminders, payment alerts, and more. Our phones are crucial security accessories as well, with texting as a major resource for two-factor authentication.

Business texting has started to make a real impact on overall text message statistics, as people receive SMS messages for business purposes roughly 3 trillion times per year. Today’s brands prioritize live, real-time communication with their customers, and those customers often prefer texting over other forms of business communication, like phone calls or emails.

Texting Within the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things is a catch-all phrase used to represent alert systems in cars, notifications from smart home devices, health monitoring, and more. For instance, if you have a smart thermostat, it might send you a text message if the temperature in your home exceeds a certain preset threshold. These machine-generated texts add millions of messages to each day’s total, although it’s hard to say exactly how many messages the Internet of Things accounts for.

Rich Communication Services (RCS): The Future of Texting

Many telecommunications providers are behind RCS as a new standard of text messaging. RCS was originally developed in the mid-2000s, but it failed to gain much traction until the late 2010s. RCS offers more modern features than SMS or MMS, like support for high-resolution pictures and videos, typing indicators, “read receipts,” file sharing, advanced group text functions, and more. With these features, RCS is positioned as more of a direct competitor to app-based messaging on WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

RCS usage is still increasing, although it’s hard to say just how popular this form of communication will get. RCS is far more popular in regions where Android outpaces iPhones, as Android users can access RCS texting via Google Messages — they don’t even need to be on their carrier’s network to send and receive these messages. By comparison, Apple took forever to adopt RCS compatibility, as it didn’t add RCS functionality to iOS until late 2024.

Furthermore, Apple’s timing with RCS adoption was a bit suspicious. Apple had been in a back-and-forth fight with the European Union for years, as European regulators argued that Apple used anti-competitive practices by closing off its texting ecosystem to non-Apple users. When Apple finally announced its RCS support, many viewed it as the company appeasing regulators and trying to prevent future lawsuits.

All of this leads to a host of very fair questions about how serious Apple is about supporting RCS. Seeing as Apple manufactures six of the 10 most popular smartphones in the world (Samsung manufactures the other four), it will largely dictate how popular RCS ultimately gets.

Other Texting Trends

As we gaze into the future of texting, there are a few other factors from the crystal ball that caught our eye.

AI Integration

The first is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). AI seems to be permeating every aspect of our digital lives these days, and text messaging is no exception.

AI-generated texts are increasing by the day in the form of chatbots and smart replies. AI chatbots handle much lower-level customer support these days, and SMS messaging is one of their primary means of communication. Furthermore, AI-generated predictive text and smart replies allow users to send more messages faster than ever before, which obviously adds to the daily volume of texts as well.

AI is also leading the way for accessibility, as users with disabilities can leverage artificial intelligence voice-to-text features. Again, this will drive up the total number of text messages.

Security and Encryption

When text messaging first made its debut, we were generally less concerned with digital security as a society than we are today. Today’s users are much more aware of privacy issues than we once were, which has led to increased adoption of end-to-end encryption within our messaging systems.

Traditional SMS services and MMS messages are not encrypted, which is one of the big reasons we’ve seen platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram take off. Today’s users want secure, encrypted messages, and these apps give them what they want.

This is another area where RCS is a major variable. RCS has the potential for end-to-end encryption, and the nonprofit trade association Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) says it’s working on bringing fully encrypted messaging to the RCS platform soon. For now, RCS uses Transport Layer Security, the same technology used to secure HTTPS websites and email applications.

All told, if RCS reaches its goal of true end-to-end encryption, it could make a major impact in bringing messages back from apps to texting formats. However, as with Apple’s appetite for RCS, many questions remain to be answered.

The Environmental Impact of Texting

Here at ecoATM, we’re always concerned about our carbon footprint. Caring for our environment is one of our top priorities, and it has led us to help recycle over 50 million smartphones and tablets to date.

Of course, this led us to wonder how texting affects the environment. Thankfully, texting has a very low impact on our ecosystem. Sending a single text message produces just 0.01 grams of carbon dioxide, while an email with an attachment generates around 50 grams of CO2.

Even when you consider that we’re sending and receiving billions of text messages every single day around the world, all of those texts contribute a relatively small amount of greenhouse gases compared to other forms of communication. In other words, feel free to send as many texts as you want — the environment doesn’t mind too much!

How ecoATM Leads the Way to an Eco-Friendly Future

If you’re sending dozens of texts per day, you’re probably also using your smartphone for plenty of other tasks, from sending emails to watching videos and playing games. Your phone can eventually get worn out from heavy use, and after a few years, it might need to be replaced.

When the time comes to upgrade to a newer device, bring your old phone to an ecoATM kiosk and exchange it for instant cash! Not only do we pay top dollar for used devices in good condition, but we also recycle every device that we can’t resell.

The process is straightforward and simple. First, prepare your device for resale by resetting it to its original factory settings, logging out of your accounts, and fully charging it. Then, bring it to your nearest ecoATM kiosk for an evaluation. With over 6,000 kiosks across the U.S., it’s easy to find one near you. (Make sure to bring a valid form of identification to the kiosk as well, so we can verify that you’re over 18 years old.)

Once the kiosk completes its assessment, all you need to do is accept our cash offer and leave your old phone at the kiosk. With ecoATM, you get fair value for your used devices and the peace of mind that you’re using an environmentally friendly service. We accept many different mobile devices, so check our online pricing tool today to find out how much you can make when you sell your used electronics to ecoATM!