Have you received any Easter cards this year? If you did, you should consider yourselves lucky because, as in the case of Christmas, printed greetings are becoming increasingly rare. SMS greetings are now in fashion.
In just three days, between April 10-12, Romanians sent almost 17 million short messages from their mobile phones.
Considering the current number of mobile phone users, standing at about 7.35 million (at least in line with the latest figures announced by the Communications minister Dan Nica), it means that, on the average, each Romanian mobile phone user sent between two and three such Easter cards. Overall, some two million dollars were spent on mobile greetings. This particular business is in full swing for the two largest GSM operators Connex and Orange.
Orange Romania representatives announced that on April 10, 11 and 12, a number of 8.9 million SMSs were sent from the company’s network. “As compared to April 26, 27 and 28, 2003, when 3.69 million written messages were sent, 141% more messages were sent this year”, according to Orange officials.
Connex also reported a double number of messages this Easter as compared to last year. Thus, eight million messages were sent from the operator’s network during this interval, according to Connex officials.
The total volume is very close to the figure registered during last year’s winter holidays. On Christmas, on December 24, 25 and 31 and on January 1, 2004, Romanians owning a mobile phone sent over 21 million SMSs. Connex logged a record number of SMSs sent during this period, with 11 million messages. Within the Orange network, users sent 10.5 million SMSs, of which more than 10% had international destinations.
iuliana.susanu@zf.ro