23 million text messages sent on New Year’s Eve

text messagesText messages.Photo : Berit Roald / NTB scanpix

New Year’s Eve 23 million text messages were sent through Telenor’s and Telia’s mobile network in Norway.

Telenor registered 16 million text messages for the period from midnight on December 31 to 6 o’clock Sunday, January 1st. In the same period 1.1 million picture messages were sent.

– Although the record year was 2007 when 29.9 million SMS were sent on New Year’s Eve, more than this was sent today when we include messages sent by Snapchat, iMessage, Hangouts and social media, says Bjørn Amundsen, Director of Coverage for Telenor Norway.

Telenor’s competitor Telia has for the first time registered a decline in the number of sent SMS and MMS on New Year’s Eve.

Telia reported 7 million SMS, while the previous New Year’s Eve had 14 million SMS sent via Telia’s network in Norway. The number of MMS sent has also fallen, but mobile data usage has increased by 70 percent.

– A halving of the number of messages was noted, but we also see an explosive increase in mobile data usage. Apps like iMessage, WhatsApp and Snapchat have probably taken a lot of traffic from us, says Karl Fredrik Lund, head of Telia.

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