2005 rings in a new record
New Year’s greetings in Switzerland by mobile phone have reached a new record, with 70.4 million text messages and pictures sent throughout the country.
The messages sent by SMS (Short Message Service) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) were six per cent up on last year’s figure of 66.4 million.
Although the trend to send MMS greetings is on the increase, the number of SMS messages sent over the holiday period still made up the larger proportion.
Despite the high load placed on equipment, the mobile network functioned smoothly, according to Switzerland’s three mobile operators. There were only a few instances of small delays.
Christian Neuhaus, a spokesman for the branch leader Swisscom told the Swiss News Agency that on New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day, a total of 34.3 million SMS and MMS messages were processed.
The previous year was slightly lower at 32.6 million.
Swisscom subscribers sent over 18 million SMS and MMS greetings up to midnight on New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Day, a further 16.3 million messages were registered.
Millions of messages
Clients of Orange wished their friends and acquaintances a happy new year with 17.79 million messages, according to the company’s spokeswoman Therese Wenger.
The majority – 17.1 million – contained SMS wishes, while the remaining 690,000 were MMS messages.
Up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, 8.41 million messages, including 8.1 million SMSs, went across the Orange network. On New Year’s Day, a further 9.38 million messages were transmitted, including nine million SMSs.
Wenger commented that the number of MMS greetings sent – 690,000 – was more than four times that of 12 months ago (150,000). She explained that this was probably due to the fact that practically all new mobile phones could now send MMS messages.
Switzerland’s third-largest mobile provider, Sunrise, reported that on December 31 and January 1, a total of 18.3 messages had been sent. Of those, 17.9 million were SMSs and 400,000 MMSs.
swissinfo with agencies
After exponential growth in the 1990s, the Swiss mobile phone market appears slowly to be reaching saturation point.
The annual growth rate of users is slowly declining
At the end of 2003, the market penetration of mobile telephones in Switzerland was 84 per cent.
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