In one of those great marketing ploys that all companies wish for and dream about, if you ask a
New Zealander about an
SMS they would most likely give you a
blank look. This is not because there aren't many cellphones - it is esitmated that there are over 2 million out there. No, the reason is because when it was introduced to
New Zealand by Vodafone it was called
Txt (pronounced text).
Because Vodafone cornered the youth market they have created a whole generation (and basically a whole country) that will forever know it as Txt. You can use it as a verb (Jeffrey txted Emma) or as a noun (Jeffrey got a txt from Emma).
On Vodafone a txt will cost you $NZ0.20 to send. This has meant that an unbelievable number (over 1.8 million per day in June 2003 in a country of just 4 million) get sent everyday and it is not uncommon to see someone trying to secretly txt from the middle of a classroom during a lesson.
Of course I'm sure that the name Txt is not isolated to New Zealand but is interesting to watch overseas programs on TV and to see them refer to it as SMS, even in Australia.