- Fewer than half (49%) of the last 20 texts people received were from someone they know, with the rest made up of passcodes, parcel alerts, reminders, marketing and scams[1]
- A quarter (24%) of UK adults – 13 million people – have binned a text from a friend or relative in the past year, assuming it was spam[2]
- Eight in 10 (80%) assume a text from an unknown number is spam or a scam, and just 6% would think it might be a friend on a new number[3]
- Verification codes are the most common text after messages from people, one in eight (13%) of the inbox, ahead of parcel updates (9%)[1]
- Texting isn't dead yet: four in five (80%) received a text from a real person this week, yet just one in 10 (11%) still use it as their main way to message, against 60% for WhatsApp[4][5]
- Scammers target Black Friday and the run-up to Christmas, weeks before Ofcom's scam-text blocking rules kick in[6][7]
- Uswitch mobiles expert, Jez Samuel, is urging people to check their junk message folders before Christmas, and never to click, pay or call from a text in a hurry
Fewer than half (49%) of the texts people receive are from someone they know, with companies, automated messages and scams as common as friends and family, reveals new research by Uswitch.com, the service helping households compare, switch and control their bills.
Uswitch asked 2,000 UK adults to open their messaging app and check who sent their last 20 texts. Just under half (49%) came from a friend, relative or someone they knew. One in eight (13%) were verification codes, and one in 11 (9%) were parcel updates, with appointment reminders (6%), marketing (5%), bank alerts (4%) and suspected scams (4%) making up most of the rest.[1]
Around 13 million adults, a quarter (24%) of the country, have ignored or deleted a message in the past year that turned out to be from a friend or family member because they assumed it was junk. One in seven (14%) have done it more than once, and the figure rises to two in five (40%) of under-35s.[2]
Eight in ten (80%) now say a text from a number they don't recognise is most likely marketing or spam (43%) or a scam (37%). Only one in 16 (6%) would consider that it might be a friend or relative with a new phone, and 4% a company they have dealt with.[3]
Table: Who is texting you
| Who sent it | Share of texts received |
|---|---|
| Friends, family and people you know | 49% |
| Passcodes, parcel alerts, reminders, bank and provider updates, and other messages | 39% |
| Marketing, unknown numbers and suspected scams | 12% |
Older people are the quickest to assume the worst of an unknown number. Over half (51%) of baby boomers (62 to 80) would take a text from a number they don't recognise for marketing or spam, compared with a third (33%) of under-35s.[3] Baby boomers are also the generation keeping the text alive, with nearly one in five (19%) still using it as their main way to reach friends and family, against one in ten (11%) of adults overall.[5]
Ofcom figures show UK texts fell from 151 billion in 2012 to 36 billion in 2022, and the 5.4 billion sent in the second quarter of 2025 is down from more than 7 billion a year earlier.[8] Even so, four in five (80%) received a message from a real person today or this week, almost three quarters (73%) sent one in that time, and two-thirds (68%) say they would miss texting if it were switched off tomorrow.[4] Just one in ten (11%) use SMS as their main way to message friends and family, against six in ten (60%) for WhatsApp.[5]
The text has also become a target for fraud. Mobile networks block an estimated 600 million scam messages a year.[6] From 18 January 2027 Ofcom will require networks to block scam texts, with rules for business messaging following on 15 July 2027.
Scammers target Black Friday on 27 November and the weeks that follow, copying the delivery and payment texts people expect.[7]
The first text message was sent on 3 December 1992, when engineer Neil Papworth typed “Merry Christmas” to Vodafone's Richard Jarvis. Thirty-four years on, fewer than half of the texts we get are from someone we know.[8]
Jez Samuel, Uswitch mobiles expert, says: “The text message has changed jobs. Most of our chat with friends has moved to WhatsApp, so the text inbox is now where banks, couriers and businesses get in touch, and where scammers go to pose as them. A message from a friend is now one voice among many, which is why so many of us treat anything unfamiliar as admin or junk.
“Keep that caution, especially with anything that tells you to click, pay or call in a hurry. Check the order in the courier’s or retailer’s own app, and forward anything suspicious to 7726, which is free. But if a text says it’s from a friend on a new number, don’t just delete it. Ring their old one to check, and look in your phone’s unknown senders folder before the Christmas invites start landing.”
Visit Uswitch.com to compare the latest mobile deals.
-ENDS-
Notes to editors
Opinium surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK adults between 30 October and 3 November 2026. Results are weighted to be nationally representative. Baby boomers are defined as 62 to 80-year-olds. Figures from Q2 are respondents’ own counts of their messaging app; phones with unknown-sender filtering switched on may already have hidden some messages from the count. [Opinium's report gives the fieldwork start as 31 October; confirm with Faye Boyle.]
1. Q2. “Open your phone’s standard text messaging app (not WhatsApp, Messenger or another chat app) and look at the last 20 texts you received, not counting ones you sent. If you have fewer than 20, use all of them. How many of them were each of the following?” Mean number of texts per respondent: a message from a friend, family member or someone I know 8.4; a verification code or one-time passcode 2.3; a delivery or parcel update 1.6; an appointment or booking reminder 1.1; a marketing message, offer or promotion 0.9; a bank or card alert 0.7; a message I think was a scam 0.7; an update from a provider 0.5; a message from a company or number I don’t recognise 0.5; something else 0.6. Total 17.3 texts, of which 8.4 (49%) were from a real person and 8.9 (51%) from everything else. Shares of the inbox are each category's mean divided by 17.3: verification codes 13%, parcel updates 9%, appointment reminders 6%, marketing 5%, bank alerts 4%, suspected scams 4%, provider updates 3%, unknown companies or numbers 3%, something else 3%.
2. Q6. “In the past 12 months, have you ignored or deleted a text message that turned out to be from a friend or family member because you assumed it was spam or junk?” “Yes, more than once”: 14%. “Yes, once”: 10%. NET yes: 24% of all UK adults, 40% of 18 to 34-year-olds, 8% of baby boomers (62 to 80). 13 million is 24% of a UK adult (18+) population of around 55 million, based on the ONS mid-2025 estimate of 69.5 million people, around four in five of whom are adults. [Confirm the 18+ total against the ONS age tables before release.]
3. Q8. “If you received a text from a number you don’t recognise, what would you most likely assume it was?” “Marketing or spam”: 43% of all adults, 51% of baby boomers, 33% of 18 to 34-year-olds. “A scam”: 37%. “A friend or family member on a new number”: 6%. “A company I’ve dealt with”: 4%. “Don’t know”: 9%.
4. Q4. “When was the last time you received an SMS text message from a real person, not a company, organisation or automated message?” “Today”: 42%. “This week”: 38%. Q5. “When did you last send a standard text message (not WhatsApp or another chat app) to a friend or family member?” “Today”: 39%. “This week”: 34%. Q7. “If text messaging (SMS) was switched off tomorrow, how much would you miss it?” “A lot”: 26%. “A little”: 42%. “Not at all”: 28%.
5. Q1. “Which one of these do you use most often to message friends and family?” “WhatsApp”: 60%. “Facebook Messenger”: 12%. “Standard text message (SMS)”: 11% of all adults, 19% of baby boomers (62 to 80). “iMessage”: 7%. “Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok messages”: 7%.
6. Ofcom, statement on combating mobile messaging scams, 2026. Operators blocked an average of around 50 million messages a month in January to March 2025, or an estimated 600 million-plus a year. Network-level blocking of scam texts is required from 18 January 2027, and business messaging rules from 15 July 2027. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/scam-calls-and-messages/consultation-combatting-mobile-messaging-scams
7. Which?, “4 ways scammers exploit Black Friday”: https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/4-ways-scammers-exploit-black-friday-aUHKJ2q1vxk0
8. Ofcom, Communications Market Report (annual SMS and MMS volumes, 2012 and 2022) and Telecoms Data Update Q2 2025 (5.4 billion messages, down from more than 7 billion in Q2 2024). The first SMS was sent by Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone on 3 December 1992.
