Swiss send ludicrous number of texts on Christmas, Christmas Eve
by Chris Ziegler 
posted Dec 26th 2007 at 5:13PM
Switzerland's three largest carriers have reported that their subscribers sent a grand total of 62 million-plus text messages on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, 5 million more than were sent in the same two-day period last year. Any way you slice it, that's a big steaming pile of SMSes -- especially considering that the good, neutral folks of Switzerland total under 8 million in population. Swisscom reports that a little over half of the messages were sent on Christmas Eve, a stat we can totally buy since we know we were too busy unwrapping phones and headsets on the 25th to bother firing off texts.[Via textually.org]
Filed under: Messaging
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alex @ Dec 26th 2007 6:04PM
Holy shit... that's almost 8 messages per every person in the nation, nevermind the number of subscribers.
MTM @ Dec 26th 2007 7:00PM
That's about the same number of messages per person as we send in the Holidays here in Denmark.
By the way, the last paragraph doesn't really hold considering here in Europa we are unwrapping the gifts on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day.
Brian @ Dec 26th 2007 7:11PM
Egads, eight texts per person?
I sent about 30 to 40 texts between the two days... but I'm 21 / middle class. I don't represent the (sad) majority of the world.
PSM @ Dec 26th 2007 7:40PM
I am not a Luddite, and I think texting is just great, but the whole texting "Merry Christmas" thing always bugs me. At least for me, I'm sitting sharing Christmas with my family, and I keep getting all these texts, which I then feel I need to reply to, lest I offend the sender. Most of all I think it's the fact that people spam their entire phone book, it's not even a personal message that's interrupting me. It's like the phone equivalent of forwarding chain letters, at a time when a lot of people are hopefully getting some rare real-life time with their loved ones.
Dian @ Dec 26th 2007 7:47PM
In portugal, we had (belive it or not) 977 million in 4 days (from 21 december to 25). Here is the link confirming (if you understand portuguese). We are 10 million people, so just do the maths.
Thanks for all your good work engadget.
http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/dinheiro_digital/news.asp?id_news=91711
toucego @ Dec 27th 2007 2:34AM
Ya, true...Is Spain, the neighbor of Portugal was sent 200 million sms(http://www.elpais.com/articulo/economia/espanoles/gastaran/millones/SMS/Navidad/elpepieco/20071226elpepieco_4/Tes) but they have 40 million people living there...Portugal has only 10 million, so the number is HUGE!
jdclarke @ Dec 27th 2007 5:23AM
Costa Ricans are not behind, believe it or not. According to Grupo ICE (the sole provider of cellular service in Costa Rica), a total of 87 million SMS messages were sent between the 24th and the 25th.
Here's the link: http://www.teletica.com/archivo/tn7/nac/2007/12/26/27725.htm (in Spanish though)
Considering Costa Rica has just over 4 million people, that would be an average of over 20 messages per person. And if you just take into account subscribers, that's a whopping 50+ messages per subscriber.
Of course, each message costs only $0.003, so even if you send 150 messages you wouldn't even spend 50 cents.
Dean @ Dec 28th 2007 12:22PM
What about in the United States?
Texting was so backed up on Christmas. I have AT&T and it was taking hours to recieve (or for the recieving party to receive) text messages. A friend of mine had similar problems on T-Mobile.
Shouldn't the networks be more prepared for something like that?