Mobile phone users of China Mobile and China Unicom, the country's two major mobile service providers, have sent about 12 billion greeting short messages during the Spring Festival holiday.

Every mobile phone user sent 30 messages on the average from January 28 to February 4, according to sources from the two companies.

Calculating on the basis of 0.1 yuan (US$1.25) per short message, China Mobile raked in 950 million yuan (US$118.8 million) from this service, while China Unicom generated 310 million yuan (US$38.8 million).

China Mobile alone sent 1.9 billion messages on January 28, or the eve of the Spring Festival, while China Unicom sent 1.4 billion on January 28-29.

According to latest statistics, China has 393 million mobile phone users. More and more people take short messages as a means of greeting and communication.

China witnessed a surge of short messages in recent years. A total of 30.46 billion short messages were sent in 2005, 300 times more than those in 2000.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2006)