“Mobile phone users in Shanghai sent over 180 million mobile messages between December 31 and January 1,”the China Daily reports.”In Beijing, people sent more than 150 million texts in the two days,generating about 15 million yuan (US$1.86 million).Zhao Yi,a spokesman for the world’s largest mobile operator China Mobile,said the growth of the number of mobile messages is usually much higher during Spring Festival than during New Year’s Day or Christmas.He added that the contribution of the seasonal messages to his company is not very significant, but for other telecoms operators it is.During last year’s Spring Festival, Chinese people sent 11 billion messages during the seven-day vacation.In the first 11 months of this year, as many as 274 billion messages were sent, 40 per cent higher than the same period in 2004.Yu Zhangkun, an analyst with Beijing-based consulting firm Byna,said sending messages has become a custom for Chinese during festivals.”After three to four years of development, sending greeting messages has melted into the blood of the people,” he said.”

Festive text messages become new tradition