A new report from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) has revealed the UK sent an average of 265 million text messages and 1.6 million picture messages every day last year. That's an annual total of 96.8 billion texts and over 600 million picture messages, with SMS messages showing 23% annual growth and MMS up 9%.
Almost 442 million texts and 4.5 million picture messages were sent on Christmas Day alone - and over 874 million texts were sent for the New Year.
Steve Reynolds, MDA Chairman, said "These statistics show that even with new social media forms of messaging such as Twitter and Facebook, people are using SMS as a social messaging tool because of its simplicity and ubiquity. There remains a significant and still developing role for text messaging. In a seemingly relentless tide of status updates, tweets and pokes, the UK population’s love affair with mobile messaging for instant, on-the-go communication continues to deepen".