Russell Beattie picked this up from the Economist and is all enthusiastic about what it says about growing American sophistication with mobiles.

The data shows the US making some of the fastest gains in developed countries in terms of texting per customer. The Economist rightly points out that cheaper voice calls, and flat rate or inexpensive data packages made it more favorable to get in touch some other way formany American mobile users. However, propensity to text in the US has grown from an average of 13 messages per subscriber per month in 2003 to 38 per user per month in 2005, and that data is nearly a year old.

Growth of pre-pay and mobile uptake among younger users, as well as growing use of SMS as an advertising and participatory channel with media tie-ins has spurred Americans' use of texting. Next thing you know we will get decent handsets like the rest of the world. Then, who knows?