SMS continues to be a vital tool for businesses to reach clients and customers in 2022. One of the most powerful features of SMS is personalization. Understanding your customer’s cellphone ownership and behavior will help you customize your approach and communicate in the way they prefer. Use these statistics to plan out your 2022 SMS campaigns to determine message delivery among your customer demographics.
Cellphone Ownership
Nearly all Americans own a cellphone of some kind. Smartphones will continue to dominate the market in 2022, but many older demographics rely on traditional cellphones with limited internet capabilities.
- 97% of Americans own a mobile phone.1
- 100% of respondents aged 18-49 own a cellphone of some kind. Ownership dips to 97% for those in the 50-64 bracket and falls to 92% for those 65+. Smartphone usage is highest for those under 50 at 95% and lowest for 65+ at 61%.1
- Users are expected to reach 301.65 million this year and will rise to 311.53 by 2025. 2
- Cellphone usage worldwide is expected to reach 8.2 billion people by 2023. 3
Cellphone User Behavior
The pandemic has played a significant role in user behaviors across the board regarding cellphone usage with work and school moving to the home for extended periods. Overall usage has gone up, but dependency on smartphones as the primary internet provider has decreased.
- 2.2 trillion SMS & MMS messages were sent in 2020. In 2012, SMS experienced a sharp drop-off that continued until falling to 1.5 trillion in 2017. Usage bounced back in 2018, SMS and MMS messages have steadily risen and are predicted to continue on this trajectory. 10
- 15% of American adults depended on smartphones for their internet in 2021. This number reached its peak in 2018 at 20% and has steadily been falling. 1
- 28% of respondents 18-29, are dependent on smartphones for the internet instead of broadband at home. 1
- 85% of Americans go online daily thanks to smartphones and internet-connected devices. 31% of those say they are online constantly, 48% go online several times a day, and 6% are online once a day. 5
- 75% of customers check their phone within 30 minutes of waking up. 6
SMS Is Preferred
SMS has distinct advantages that email and social media will never have. One of which is the lack of clutter that plagues other channels. SMS is free from the paid advertising that has taken over email and social media platforms. This, along with the fact that texting is native to each mobile device, makes it one of the most reliable ways to reach customers.
- Nine-in-ten consumers want businesses to communicate with them through SMS. 7
- 98% of all texts are opened and 95% are read and responded to in three minutes. 7
- On average, text messages are answered in 90 seconds. It takes 90 minutes for the average email response. 8
- 48% of consumers want direct communication from brands via text over email, apps and direct mail. 7
- SMS has a 19% CTR, trailed by email at 4% and Facebook at 1%. 7
- 90% of customers want a text message over direct calls and emails from a business. 7
- Eight-in-ten Americans do not answer their cellphones when receiving calls from an unknown number. Not surprising for a time filled with overwhelming robocalls, advanced call block technology, and phones with screening settings. 9
- Nearly 50 million customers in 2020 opted-in to receive business SMS. 6
- 50% of consumers say that they would opt-in to loyalty programs that offer promotions over SMS. 6
- The USA SMS market is expected to reach a valuation of $31.7 billion this year. 7
Phone Ownership
User Forecast
Smartphone Dependency
As you’ve seen in the statistics above, nearly all of the country owns a cellphone, and each demographic’s behavior can vary widely. Understanding your customer base and how they fall into these categories will help you create and deliver messages that meet your goals. The team at Solutions by Text can help you create custom SMS campaigns that correspond to your customer base’s behavior.
Talk with our Team of Experts today!
Source List
- https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/201182/forecast-of-smartphone-users-in-the-us/
- https://www.smscomparison.com/mass-text-messaging/2021-statistics/
- https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-time-spent-with-mobile-2021
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/26/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-say-they-are-almost-constantly-online/
- https://www.smscomparison.com/sms-marketing/statistics/
- https://www.smscomparison.com/mass-text-messaging/2021-statistics/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/01/20/why-sms-is-the-marketing-tool-of-the-future/?sh=4a2779fc7012
- https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/12/14/most-americans-dont-answer-cellphone-calls-from-unknown-numbers/
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/185879/number-of-text-messages-in-the-united-states-since-2005/