Abstract: With the popularity of mobile phones in China, SMS weather service has become one of the three main means in the field of weather information dissemination. Based on the survey data collected in 2009, the SMS subscription behavior of the public was analyzed by the methods of a non-parametric test, a logistic regression and a tree model. The results show that there are significantly behavioral differences among the public for SMS subscription because of differences in gender, place of residence, age, educational background and income. Whether weather service can save the cost, public income, residence, forecast accuracy and gender could significantly affect the SMS subscription behavior, and the first two factors are the most important to the subscription behavior among all factors. The probability of SMS subscription would increase 59.1% if the public think that weather service can save the cost. At the same time, the higher the public’s income is, the higher the probability of SMS subscription is. The probability of SMS subscription increases 23.1% when the monthly income increases one level (level is designed by the questionnaire). This study could provide references for increasing the SMS subscription rates and improving the effectiveness of public weather services.

Key words: Meteorological services, SMS, Behavior study, Meteorological services, SMS, Behavior study