Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience Hive account@ivars. From your comment, this is my understanding that during the signup process, you received only sms code (No email verification). Then, after 4 days you received email from steemit to inform you that your account is approved. Please let me know, if I got it right.

My friends and family members, whom I introduced to Steemit and still waiting for approval after couple of weeks without any email confirmation or verification from steemit.