Verisign Verifies There's a Whole Lot of TXTing Going On

VeriSign announced another record-breaking quarter for mobile messaging, based on the latest quarterly index of mobile messaging statistics compiled by VeriSign’s Messaging and Mobile Media division.

Through June 30, 2008, VeriSign’s combined mobile messaging networks delivered 95.4 billion Inter-carrier Short Message Service (ICSMS) messages in the calendar year, eclipsing the previous record for text messages in the first half of any year. VeriSign’s network also set a single-day record by enabling 648 million texts over a 24-hour period and a one-hour record of 42 million messages.

All told, VeriSign’s combined mobile messaging networks enabled more than 52 billion messages in Q2 2008, up more than 20 percent from the previous quarter. VeriSign facilitated an average of approximately 572 million messages per day in Q2 2008, compared to approximately 476 million messages per day in Q1 2008 and approximately 230 million messages per day in Q2 2007.

These record-breaking numbers provide additional evidence to support VeriSign’s projection earlier this year that its combined mobile messaging networks will enable close to 200 billion total messages worth more than $7 billion in revenue to VeriSign customers by the end of the year.

Application to person messages (A2P), such as news alerts, ring tones, promotional video clips, and enterprise messages sent to mobile users, also rose sharply in Q2 2008, from approximately 186 million messages in Q1 2008 to approximately 249 million messages in Q2 2008, an increase of close to 33 percent. Contributing to this growth were increases in the steady adoption of mobile banking services by VeriSign’s customers, including 7 of the top 10 banks in the United States and a 30 percent increase in traffic volumes for standard and premium A2P traffic messages carried in Europe.