More than 24 million messages were sent through Chunghwa Telecom Co's (中華電信) mobile phone network during the first two days of the Lunar New Year holiday, according to Taiwan's largest telecom operator.
Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大) said close to 23 million messages were sent through its network during the first two days of the traditional Chinese holiday that was just completed.
It is estimated that a total of 60 million short messages were sent through the nation's telecom operators during this period.
People in China sent 9.8 billion greetings through their mobile phones on Lunar New Year's eve and the week-long New Year's holiday, which was 3 billion messages more than last year, state media reported yesterday.
The staggering figures mark a continuing trend to send holiday good wishes by short messages instead of the traditional way -- paying visits bearing gifts.
From Lunar New Year's eve on Jan. 21 to the last day of the holiday on Jan. 28, mobile subscribers with China Mobile sent 7.8 billion short messages.
China Unicom clients sent 2 billion, the Xinhua news agency said.
With 269 million mobile phone subscribers nationwide by the end of last year, that averaged 36 messages per subscriber.
Paying 0.1 yuan (US$0.01) for each message on average, subscribers spent around 1 billion yuan over the holiday on mobile phone messages, according to Xinhua.
China's mobile phone subscribers soared by 30 percent last year to 269 million, exceeding the number of fixed-line users for the first time, according to official data.
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