As part of the global omnichannel company’s celebration of the “30th Anniversary of the SMS” Helene Donahue appears with the person who sent the world’s first SMS message

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today Infobip’s General Manager for North America, Helene Donahue made an appearance on NBC’s TODAY Show alongside the person who sent the world’s first SMS message, Neil Papworth. As part of the global omnichannel company’s celebration of the “30th Anniversary of the SMS”, they discussed how technology has changed in the three decades since that first message was sent—a simple “Merry Christmas”—and what the future may hold for communications. The event was recorded and will be streamed online today, 30 years after that pioneering SMS was sent on December 3rd, 1992. Viewers may watch the recording HERE.

“SMS is the messaging medium that has transformed how we communicate, and with Infobip reaching more than 70% of the mobile phones across the globe, we felt uniquely qualified to help herald this milestone,” said Donahue. “Businesses are increasingly using SMS to interact with customers to ask for feedback, send package delivery notifications, carry out security authorizations, confirm appointments and so much more. Infobip facilitates the vast majority of these exchanges along with other messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Telegram. In fact, we had more than 1.5 million business to consumer messages go out over our networks on Black Friday alone!”

Citing findings from Infobip’s “30th Anniversary of the SMS” survey, Donahue shared surprising statistics on how, where and when Americans are communicating with each other. Some key takeaways from the survey of 1000 Americans include:

  • More than a third of the respondents (36.9%) confessed to texting during a work meeting, with millennials being the biggest offenders (47.3%).
  • Nearly half of millennials (45%) have texted while drunk and sent a message they regret.
  • A significant portion of millennials (36%) and Gen Zers (30.8%) have texted at a wedding.
  • A surprising number of millennials (26.8%) reported texting at a funeral.
  • Nearly half of Gen Zers (45%) have been dumped over text.
  • Over a quarter (26%) of millennials have received a marriage proposal via text.

Tune into the TODAY Show segment to learn more about the historic moment that the first text message was sent, how it has changed the way we communicate with each other and how Infobip will continue to transform communications in the future.

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact center solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to 70+ offices worldwide. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over 7 billion mobile devices and ‘things’ on six continents connected directly to over 700 telecom networks. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić, Roberto Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.

About the survey

Infobip commissioned a survey from Propeller Insights of 1,000 adults, gender-balanced and distributed across age groups from 18 to 65+ in the United States. Propeller Insights is a full-service market research firm based in Los Angeles, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies to measure and analyze marketplace and consumer opinions, extensively across industries. This survey was conducted in October of 2022.

Contacts

Janet Lennon

PR & Communications Lead | North America

Direct: 206.914.6175

janet.lennon@infobip.com