Why is the Philippines called the SMS Capital?

International Online Report: Mobile phone users in the Philippines have formed a short message culture, that is, there are only 50 million mobile phone users in the Philippines, but the number of sending and receiving short messages is as high as 65.438+39 billion.

In the Philippines, each SMS charges $0.024, and the local mobile phone company can be said to have a bumper harvest in the new year. The data is the result of communication company Acision through 300 network operators and service providers. Acision also found that during the New Year period from 2007 to 2008, the total number of messages sent and received worldwide increased by 30% compared with the same period last year.

Mobile phone users all over the world sent and received 43 billion short messages during the New Year this year, expressing their blessings to relatives and friends, which is amazing. These figures show that sending and receiving short messages continues to affect people's communication habits, and this influence is growing. This growth is obvious in both the mature mobile phone market and the rapidly developing global market. In Portugal, the number of text messages sent during festivals is three times that of last year, and the number of text messages sent on New Year's Eve in the Netherlands is twice that of last year.

SMS is very popular among Filipinos, and it has also attracted the government's "special attention". At the beginning of this year, Philippine Minister of Trade and Industry Fabila suggested taxing domestic short messages to increase national fiscal revenue and prevent people from being too obsessed with short messages. Fabila said that taxing SMS can make more Filipinos turn their attention to more meaningful activities. However, the decision on whether to levy taxes rests with the Ministry of Finance, and he believes that Philippine Finance Minister Terbetz will support his idea. ?

It is understood that the cost of sending a short message by a mobile phone user in the Philippines is only 1 peso (1.8 cents), so sending a short message is the cheapest communication method for domestic consumers in the Philippines, even cheaper than making a fixed phone call. Because of its low price, convenience and practicality, short messages have quickly become popular in the Philippines. In just a few years, SMS has become the most popular and commonly used way of communication, so that social activists also use SMS to organize activities. ?

Former Philippine President Estrada stepped down, that is, organizers used mobile phone text messages to organize millions of people to hold anti-corruption demonstrations, and finally ousted Estrada. According to statistics, mobile phone users in the Philippines send1.200 million ~1.500 million short messages every day, far exceeding the sum of the number of short messages sent by users in all EU countries.