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If you think that WhatsApp is killing the humble text message you may need to think again. While the number of text messages being sent by people in the developed world has fallen since 2011, there continues to be one big growth areas - notification SMS messages sent from businesses to customers. With just 200 employees, it now sends out two billion text messages per year, on behalf of 30,000 businesses and other organisations, up from 100 million texts in 2010. Geoff Love, Esendex's chief executive, says while friends may like to chat over Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, there are a number of key reasons why businesses prefer to send out text messages instead. "SMS is the only app that's on every phone in the world, so no matter who you are trying to communicate with, you know they can receive a text message." "SMS is also very powerful - people read text messages. 95% of text messages are read within five seconds, so you know your message will get there quickly and cheaply."

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