SMS use in the Philippines declined significantly in 2011

Phone Arena reported on the decline of SMS use because of the greater use of  communications via Internet either via social networks and instant messengers, and one example cited was the Philippines.

The trend toward sending out fewer texts has been seen in other reports dealing with other countries. Cell phone users in the Philippines, which is one of the top texting countries, averaged 400 texts a month last year which was down from the average of 660 monthly texts sent in 2010. That report was released by independent mobile analyst Chetan Sharma who said the increasing use of Internet messaging services like Skype, iMessage and Google Voice was the reason for the declining use of text messaging in the country.

The decline in the number of text messages each Filipino sends every month is significant, I do not see SMS being replaced for communications when a quick reply is desired. While half of my contacts are listed in as contacts can be reached through Facebook, GTalk or Viber, few of them are actually on data plans so messages sent to them will not reach most of them for several hours until they log on to the Internet at a WiFi hot spot. 

While the SMS cash cow may be shrinking, local carriers are making up for at least some of the losses in data plans.