New Years Eve 2009 - SMS records broken across Europe as highest ever text message volumes sent
Every year record numbers of SMS / text messages seem to be sent on New Years Eve and the early hours of New Years Day. This year SMS records were broken yet again as text message volumes for New Years Eve 2008/2009 are revealed.
A number of countries and mobile operators have released statistics for sent SMS New Years Eve 2008/2009. The below is an aggregation of links and data showing the New Years Eve 2009 text messaging reports so far:
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in UK
(from Pocket-lint.co.uk)
"UK operator O2 has announced that 166 million messages were sent over its network in a 24-hour period ending at 7.30 am on New Year's Day 2009 (representing an increase on 2007/2008 figures.) O2 says that an average of 1900 messages were sent every second!
Before New Year, rival operator Orange predicted that it would be due to handle approximately 112 million SMS and 900,000 picture messages on 31 December. In addition, Orange revealed that another 110 million were expected to be sent on New Year's day."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Sweden
(translated from Dagens Nyheter and Tele2 press office)
"24 million SMS messages were sent between 00:00 and 18:00 on New Year's Day on the Telia network (an increase on 2008 of 2.6 million), with a further 20.3 million sent on New Years Eve before midnight (an increase of 2.3 million.) On the Tele2 network there were 28.4 million text messages sent between midnight and 9am on New Year's Day, with 22.7 million SMS messages sent before midnight."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Ireland
(from www.independent.ie)
"REVELLERS sent more than a staggering 30 million mobile messages.... in a New Year texting frenzy [marking a significant year on year increase.] Between midnight and 1am, customers with Meteor alone sent a staggering 1,743,000 texts wishing those close to them and far away, all the best for 2009. And O2 customers tapped out a massive 21 million texts in the 24-hour period between New Year's Eve at 7am and New Year's Day at 7am."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in France
(http://wimax.tmcnet.com)
"New records for New Years SMS were set in France as all the major operators reported increases in New Years Eve text messages being sent.
Orange said the number of SMS sent between 21:00 and 02:00 rose by 27% on last year to over 66 million. SFR told AFP that 18.1 million SMS had been sent for the New Year, up 36% on last year. Bouygues Telecom indicated that SMSs rose by 100% to 15 million between 12:00 and 01:00. On 31 December, around 44 million SMS were sent, up 96% on a year earlier."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Holland / Netherlands
(www.tradingmarkets.com)
"Vodafone, T-Mobile and KPN reported record numbers of text messages processed between 22.00 hours and 4.00 hours. Vodafone Netherlands handled 22.1 million messages, T-Mobile processed about 19 million messages and KPN over 24.5 million."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Belgium
(http://en.sourcews.com)
"Mobile operator BASE, reports record SMS traffic on New Year's Eve - handling 18,715,235 SMS text messages between 8 p.m. on 31 December 2008 and 8 a.m. on 1 January 2009 - 44% more than last year."
(For full breakdown of 2007 / 2008 figures see mobileweb.be blog)
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Bulgaria
(www.novinite.com)
"The subscribers of Bulgaria's two largest mobile phones operators Mtel and Globul sent over 14 million short messages on New Year's Eve.
Bulgaria's largest mobile phones operator Mtel announced Friday its SMS traffic amounted to about 9 000 000 messages between 10 pm on December 31 and 12 pm on January 1. Bulgaria's second largest mobile phones operators announced its subscribers had sent 5 100 000 short messages between December 31 and noon on January 2."
New Years Eve SMS 2008/2009 in Germany
(www.bitkom.org)
I can't find any official declarations yet, but Bit Kom were forecasting a record number of text messages (300 million+) would be sent in Germany on New Years Eve 2008 / 2009.
It would be great to find final Germany figures, figures for Spain, Italy and any other European country not included above for New Years Eve texts 2008 / 2009 - please leave links in the comments or email me if you know where to find these.
Also note the figures above are almost entirely quoted from secondary sources rather than directly from official press releases etc. A number of sources have also been translated from native language into English. I would therefore recommend exercising caution before treating these figures as 100% accurate, however they can be used to illustrate the continuing trend of ever increasing amounts of text messages being sent on New Years Eve all over Europe.
Whilst social networks have seen dramatic growth across the last 2 years (on both desktop and mobile), it would appear that rather than using one status message to wish Happy New Year to many friends, people still prefer to send multiple SMS's to wish Happy New Year!
Facebook mobile status comments - the latest driver of mobile social network use
QR codes evolving with new Insqribe offerings
Facebook click to call on status updates
QR codes arrive in the UK!
"Mobile Search isn't so involved"
Hi Nick, it's surprising how difficult it is to get these figures isn't it! You expect someone, somewhere to have done the hard work already (well I did when I started searching). Interesting stats, thanks for the link.
Amy Yoffie said...
How can I find out the cost of receiving SMS text messages in Europe? I am especially interested in Denmark, Germany, Italy & Poland. Thanks.
Hi Amy, can't think of anything other than going to the relevant operators' websites or contacting them directly. Sorry I can't help.