Buongiorno, together with its subsidiary, sms.at, has announced the launch of mysms, an SMS app for Android devices that offers cheaper text messages for users. The app gives the user the option of using mysms, or the pre-installed SMS software on the Android phone, enabling them to select their own tariff and choose how SMS messages are sent.
The cost of sending messages via mysms is £0.07 within the same country, or £0.09 to other countries.

Additional features include group send, ‘SMS pop-up’, and a signature feature that enables users to automatically include a signature on their messages. Group send enables multiple sending to different groups of people, and allows contacts to be synchronised, either with those in the phonebook or those being managed directly in the app itself.

And when a text message is received, a pop-up window appears, enabling the user to immediately read and reply to the message, without having to close any othee application they are using at that time. 

Following a successful test phase in Austria, the application is now available in five countries, including France, Germany, Italy and the UK, where, according to recent data from GfK Retail and Technology research, smartphone adoption is skyrocketing, with penetration in the contract mobile devices market in the UK reaching 73.5 per cent in June this year. According to comScore, Android has an average penetration of 2 per cent in the five largest European countries, and analysts estimate that this will grow to 25 per cent in the medium term – with a potential global market of over 700.

mysms adds to Buongiorno’s existing portfolio of smartphone applications, which includes Hellotxt, a personal social networking tool for iPhone, iPad and Android; and Applistars, which the company describes as “a launching pad for its mobile content in the world of iPhone applications”.

mysms is available for download from Android market.