The first SMS message was sent by a 22-year-old test engineer named Neil Papworth of Sema Group (Mavenir Systems) using a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 handset.
The text of the message was "Merry Christmas."
This message was carried over the Vodafone GSM network and started the revolution of person-to-person text messaging.
While the foundation of SMS technology had been around for quite some time at the time, it was first spearheaded by Finnish engineer Matti Makkonen.
The first commercially as a person-to-person text messaging service by Radiolinja in Finland in 1993. Most GSM mobile phone handsets at the time didn't support the ability to send SMS text messages.
Makkonen credited Nokia who helped to popularize the service. He said that the development of SMS, was a joint effort, and it was the Nokia 2010, which was released in January 1994, that became the first mobile phone to support composing SMSes easily.
When Nokia introduced the SMS feature on its handsets with a 160-character limit, it started a revolution on how we communicate.
However, the initial growth was slow. In 1995, people only sent an average of 0.4 messages per GSM per month. Another cause of the SMS slow adoption, was because operators were slow in setting up charging systems, especially for prepaid subscribers, and eliminate billing fraud.
This issue was eliminated when operators switched their billing system. instead of billing at the SMSC, operators used new features within SMSCs to allow blocking of foreign mobile users sending messages through it. When the restriction was lifted in 1999, SMS to began their ability to be exchanged between different providers.
This moment allowed massive adoption of the SMS feature. It didn't take long until many ecosystem of software were built around SMS, ranging from marketing tools, to banking and project management. It was also SMS that would give rise to emojis and messaging apps used by billions.