The company reported its youth-oriented brand, Hi, saw an 8% decline in outgoing SMS or text messages per customer in the first three months of this year compared with the first quarter of 2010.

WSJ: Cellphone Carriers Face Pressure Over Texting

Geva Rechav, a Google product manager for emerging markets, confirmed in a blog post that Gmail SMS messages will be free to receive, but standard fees will apply for outgoing emails.

ENGADGET: Google launches Gmail SMS for text-based email in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya