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Spring fest: Chinese send 12 billion SMS

February 08, 2006 13:12 IST
Chinese people sent about 12 billion SMS to greet their countrymen during the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, raking in nearly $157 million for the service providers.

Every mobile phone user sent 30 messages on the average from January 28 to February 4, according to sources in 'China Mobile' and 'China Unicom', the country's two major mobile service providers.

Calculating on the basis of 1.25 US cents per SMS, China Mobile raked in $118.8 million from this service, while China Unicom generated $38.8 million. China Mobile alone sent 1.9 billion messages on January 28, the eve of the Spring Festival, while China Unicom sent 1.4 billion on January 28-29.

According to latest statistics, China has 393 million mobile phone users. China witnessed a surge of short messages in recent years.

A total of 30.46 billion short messages were sent in 2005, 300 times more than those in 2000.

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