Europe UK : The total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across the four UK GSM networks in 2003 totalled 20.5 billion according to figures released today by the Mobile Data Association (MDA). The year end figure was confirmed with the announcement of December's text messaging figure of 1.9 billion, an increase of over 100 million on November 2003. December's figure takes the daily average to 61 million compared to 52 million in December 2002 and 42 million in December 2001.

For the year ahead the MDA forecasts continued growth with text messaging expected to reach 23 billion for 2004, equating to 63 million messages per day compared to an average of 55 million for 2003. The MDA will continue to monitor the situation with a monthly statistics review.

In releasing today's figures Mike Short, Chairman of the MDA commented: "Text messaging usage will continue to grow in 2004 with operators and service providers offering customers greater mobility, ease of use, colour screens, higher speed devices and of course more functionality, coupled with an ever increasing range of services. With significant choice and competition in messaging services the use of text is also evolving into picture messaging, WAP and instant messaging as people explore the full range of mobile messaging services available to them."