With growing demand for Android phones and the iPhone worldwide, marketers who haven’t yet adopted a strategy for reaching mobile phone users will soon lag behind.

When you consider the launch of the iPhone 4S in the US this past fall that has still left many waiting to receive their phones, it’s an understatement to say that mobile is a channel that marketers should consider. Apple stores in Beijing made news today for closing their doors to angry mobs, pelting the store with eggs, after waiting to purchase the highly sought-after, yet out-of-stock, iPhone 4S. This story only drives home the point that more and more people are hopping on the mobile network – only increasing its validity as a marketing channel.

According to The Huffington Post, CEO Tim Cook said in October that “China is Apple's fastest-growing market and "an area of enormous opportunity," citing quarterly sales that were up nearly four times from a year earlier and accounted for one-sixth of Apple's global sales.

With countries across the world picking up speed when it comes to mobile penetration, it’s difficult to ignore the power of SMS marketing. Text messaging is still by far the most widely used type of mobile advertising.  Even in markets like China, text messaging is continuing to stay in the lead. In fact around one billion text messages were sent last year during the Chinese New Year.

mobiThinking research reflects that SMS is the king of mobile messaging. In 2011 alone, projections had the number of text messages to be sent at 8 trillion. And by 2016, automated B2B text alerts are expected to overtake person to person SMS.

So, if you want to be sure to connect with and engage your customer in the mobile marketing landscape of today and the future, you’ll want to get your own mobile keyword and short code soon, like the ones offered by Trumpia, if you haven’t already. That way, you can get started promoting it on your website, Facebook fan page and all your marketing materials so you can leverage the power of MMS, SMS and other valuable mobile marketing tools.

This year, and every other year going forward is the year of the SMS text message. You won’t want to miss out on that!