Malaysians are eager users of messaging apps, with 62 percent ranking them as the most important communication tool, a study sponsored by Telenor has found.
More than 80 percent of the Malaysian mobile users between 16 and 35 use messaging apps on a daily basis compared to 49 percent who use text messaging daily.
WhatsApp’s popularity among young Malaysians accounts for the usage pattern, the study suggests.
In Thailand, Internet voice calling (32 percent) is a close competitor to ordinary mobile calls (35 percent) as the “most important” communication tool.
In the mature mobile internet markets of Norway and Sweden, a high share of mobile users 16 to 35 still rate text messaging and mobile voice calls as the most important communication tools.
Some 38 percent of the Norwegian respondents and 34 percent of the Swedish ones make traditional phone calls several times a day.
In Norway, 64 percent says they use messaging apps at least once a day and the growth in daily use of messaging apps in Sweden has exploded from 14 percent to 55 percent over three years.
Serbia has by far the highest share of mobile users 16 to 35 who use carrier voicephone and text messaging on a daily basis. Some 94 percent say they make calls daily. Also, 85 percent use text messaging daily.
Email also gets significant use by young mobile users in all surveyed markets except Pakistan.
Serbia has the highest share who use email several times a day (39 percent) with Malaysia (33 percent), Thailand (33 percent) and Hungary (32 percent) close to those levels. Norway (26 percent) and Sweden (24 percent) have fairly similar email habits.
In Pakistan, only one percent of mobile users 16 to 35 use mobile email several times a day.
