Text messaging craze continues

A record number of text messages were sent by UK mobile owners last month, according to the latest statistics.

Figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA), show that 1.8 billion text messages were sent across the UK in October - the highest monthly total since the MDA launched in 1998.

UK users sent on average 58.5 million texts a day in October, up from 58 million in September. October 2002 saw an average of 50 million texts sent each day.

Text messaging figures for 2003 so far stands at 16.8 billion, already surpassing the 2002 total of 16 billion.

According to the MDA's Text.it website, the first text message was sent in 1992. On New Year's Eve 2002, the number of text messages sent in one day topped one hundred million for the first time.

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