SMS use in the UK still strong

The UK text messaging figures continued to break the 2 billion barrier in September with a total of 2.13 billion, according to figures released today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators last month show an increase of 23% on the total sent during the same period in 2003. The highest monthly total of text messages ever recorded by the MDA was 2.198 billion in January 2004.

The Mobile data association also announced that the entire mobile data industy contributes 23 billion annually to UK GDP. Mike Short, Chairman of the MDA commented, "The Association has much to celebrate after ten years of championing the use of mobile data, with annual WAP usage growth running at 109%, and a forecast of 25billion text messages being sent during 2004, we can be very proud of our success so far."