Despite the growing popularity of free social messaging apps such as Facebook (News - Alert) Messenger, iMessage, Skype and WhatsApp, nearly half of smartphone owners still prefer to use their carrier's texting plans.

Many observers view social messaging apps as potential threats to big carriers and their texting plans. After all, two people using WhatsApp can send messages to one another without paying for SMS. They can download the Android app for free and the iOS app for 99 cents. In fact, Google (News - Alert) offered $1 billion for WhatsApp earlier this year, but WhatsApp chose to turn down Google's offer.

Even with the cost savings provided by social messaging apps, only seven percent of U.S. smartphone users prefer using messaging apps instead of texting. Just 12 percent of U.K. smartphone users feel the same way.

One drawback of using a social messaging app, according to a survey conducted by Infinite Convergence (News - Alert) Solutions, is that the person to whom the message is sent has to have the app in order to receive the message. Texting, alternatively, is device-neutral and can be sent to any phone with SMS capability.

Users have also expressed frustration that messaging apps aren't interoperable. In fact, both U.S. and U.K. users agreed that they rate the ability to communicate with every contact as the most important feature of a preferred messaging platform.

Pinger, another social messaging app, has overcome this problem by assigning a phone number to any user that downloads its app. Thanks to the phone number, the user can send messages even to a recipient that doesn't use Pinger (News - Alert).

Some users worry that social messaging apps can suffer from data breaches or message delays. The majority of survey respondents believe that carrier messaging is more secure and more reliable. Over half of respondents also say that they've experienced delays of minutes, hours and even days when sending messages over social messaging platforms.

Industry observers express concern that services like WhatsApp don't have a profitable long-term business model. Right now, the company is considering a subscription plan for its service, although it currently charges nothing for messaging. Pinger, however, provides either a free app with ads or charges $5.99 per year to remove ads.

Greg Woock (News - Alert), who is Pinger's CEO, believes that messaging will eventually become free all over the world. He says that the key to succeeding is to provide value-added options beyond what the carriers and other messaging services currently offer.