BY THE NUMBERS: A look at texting

3 minutes

More than 90 percent of the time, texts are read within the first three minutes after receipt.

Zipwhip, 2019 State of Texting Report

60%

By far the most common business use of texting is to schedule appointments. A distant second is alerts and notifications (23%), customer support (21%), and billing (11%). Only 9% of business texting is for marketing purposes.

Zipwhip, 2019 State of Texting Report

9

Position of automotive on the list of top 10 industries using texting with customers. Top of the list real estate with a penetration rate of 73%. The penetration rate in automotive stands at 48%.

Zipwhip, 2019 State of Texting Report

40%

Customers who receive texts from businesses tend to have a 40 percent higher conversion rate than those who do not. Small businesses could benefit from this consumer behaviour.

Zipwhip, 2019 State of Texting Report

71%

Over two thirds of 30- to 44-year-olds said they would text a business more frequently if they had the opportunity.

Zipwhip, 2019 State of Texting Report

1 in 7

Ratio of Canadian workers who were self-employed in 2018 (15% of total employment). That’s up from 12% in 1976.

Statistics Canada study “Self-employed Canadians: Who and Why?”

61%

Percentage of Canadians who have concerns about accountability in the event of a crash involving an autonomous vehicle. Other concerns were vehicle hacking (59%), and the theft of driver-generated data (53%).

Canadian Automobile Association, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Tool

20.9%

Percentage of new light vehicle registrations in Canada dedicated to fleets in 2018. That’s up slightly from 2017 (19.9%) and 2016 (19.6%).

IHS Markit, DesRosiers Automotive Consultants

4,120,900

The inventory of unsold vehicles at the end of April 2019 – a 10-year high. Slowing sales in April meant dealers and automakers had an estimated 78 days’ worth of sales of unsold vehicles on their lots. That’s the highest since 2009 (85 days).

Automotive News

258 million litres

Amount of fuel Canadian drivers are expected to waste in 2019 due to tire underinflation. That amount of gasoline will produce emissions totaling 593,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Tire and Rubber Association of Canada