The strength of texting growth can be seen throughout 2004, where figures have exceeded 2 billion a month since the beginning of the year, compared with a total of 20.5 billion text messages for the whole of 2003.

July 2004 figures show an upward trend to 2.15 billion, according to figures released by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators increased by 28% on the total sent during the same period in 2003, and a daily average of 69 million compared to 54 million in July 2003.

These figures received an added boost on the 19th August with a total of 81 million text messages sent on the day when students shared their 'A' Level results and success with friends and family. This shows an increase of 21% on last year, and a year on year increase of 14 million text messages sent at this time.