According to the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF), presented by Marketing Charts, consumers’ messaging preferences differ when communicating with each other and with businesses. The study indicates that mobile messaging with businesses is quite mainstream, with 65% of mobile users surveyed having communicated with businesses via messaging app, and 76% having done so via SMS.
The most common institution that consumers message with is the financial one, says the report, with 33% having sent or received a text message with a bank of other financial institution in the prior 12 months, and 22% having sent or received a messaging app. Other businesses relatively commonly messaged include:
Mobile Media Users’ Messaging With Business (Sent or Received Text Message (SMS) or Messaging App Message w/in 12 Months; % of Respondents) | ||
Message | SMS | App |
Your bank or other financial institution | 33% | 22% |
Company promoting goods | 26 | 15 |
Website or email service provider | 24 | 17 |
Company order information | 23 | 16 |
Your school or university | 17 | 14 |
Confirming appointment or booking | 16 | 11 |
Doctor/hospital/healthcare professional | 15 | 12 |
Employer | 15 | 15 |
Sports or social club | 11 | 9 |
Airline/taxi/train company | 11 | 9 |
Request for meter reading, etc. | 10 | 5 |
Government department or local authority | 9 | 6 |
Source: Mobile Ecoststem Forum (MEF), July 2016 |
Analyzing the use of messaging with businesses across the 9 countries tracked in the survey, reveals that Nigeria is the country where mobile users were the most likely to have messaged business, whether by SMS (92% having done so) or app (82%). The US was around the global average, with 77% having messaged a company via SMS and 65% via app.
Messaging usage varies by business type and country.
While SMS is preferred over apps for business communications, the reverse is true for P2P messaging. The service that most consumers use regularly to communicate with each other is Facebook Messenger, cited by 56% of respondents. WhatsApp is also regularly used by 50% of respondents, while 42% use SMS to communicate with each other regularly.
WhatsApp takes the lead for the app or service used the most often noted by 37% of respondents. 21% use Facebook Messenger the most, followed by SMS (16%) and WeChat (9%).
As with business communications, preferences for P2P messaging also vary by geography. in Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria, WhatsApp is regularly used by more respondents than Facebook Messenger. In France, SMS (70%) takes the lead over Facebook (67%), while in China 79% of respondents regularly use WeChat, while no more than 1 in 6 use any other service regularly.
Interestingly, while 50% of mobile media users worldwide use WhatsApp regularly to communicate with each other, that figure plummets to just 9% in the US. in fact, respondents in the US were twice as likely to regularly use Snapchat (20%) as WhatsApp, concludes the report.
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