New Text Messaging Service Growing in Popularity, GSMA Says

Japanese wireless carriers KDDI, NTT DoCoMo and SoftBank launched rich communications services based on GSM Association specifications, GSMA said Wednesday: Called "+ message," it's an upgrade to SMS, adding "messaging features such as chat, group chat, video, gifs, file and location sharing.” The service “is poised for explosive growth this year with more and more operators launching,” said Alex Sinclair, GSMA chief technology officer.