100 Billion Messages Sent By UK's Texting Generation As Texting Hits All Time High

In a year that witnessed the launch of a new currency in Europe, a nation gripped by fears of a dreaded millennium bug and millions headed for their chosen spot to experience a solar eclipse on the 11th August, 1999 also saw the MDA commence its official, ongoing, monitoring of SMS statistics. Back then, little was known about how the technology would take the world by storm into the 21st century.

Since those early days, figures have gathered momentum year on year and July 2005 marks another major text messaging milestone. Just as we spend 100 billion annually on food, there are 100 billion neurons in the average human brain and 100 billion stars make up the Milky Way Galaxy, we have now sent more than 100 billion text messages in the UK!

Figures for the month of July have leapt to a remarkable 2.7 billion, the highest ever total, according to figures released today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). Person-to-person texts sent across the UK GSM network operators during July show an increase of 23.5% on the total sent during the same period in 2004 with 87 million messages being sent per day, the highest average daily figure recorded to date.