<p>Between October 2011 and August 2012, SMS consumption among Finnish iPhone users dropped by 14%. During the same time span, mobile data usage grew by 68%. This supports the theory that iPhone is particularly effective at undermining traditional text-messaging.</p><p>European SMS volume trends have diverged over the past couple of years. Text-messaging volumes in countries like Spain and Netherlands have started falling steeply, while volumes continued rising during 2011 in countries like France and Finland.</p><p>There is a wide variety of reasons for how SMS volumes trend in individual countries. In Spain, the brutal financial crisis may be one major factor driving consumers to adopt cheaper alternatives for text-messaging. In Netherlands, the unusually high pricing of text-messaging services drove strong early adoption of WhatsApp messaging service. And in Finland, the unusually low number of iPhone owners may have extended the growth of traditional text-messaging in 2011. However, the number of iPhone owners is now growing rapidly in Finland as the former Symbian stronghold starts to converge with the rest of Europe.</p><p>The data from Finnish iPhone owners using Ratemizer, a new iPhone application, gives us a rare glimpse into how the SMS usage of iPhone owners has changed over the past year. Ratemizer evaluates the voice minute, SMS and mobile data consumption of its users and helps them find the cheapest possible plan fitting that usage profile.</p><p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2012/10/09/text-messaging-volume-of-iphone-owners-declining-sharply-in-finland/">Keep reading...</a></p>