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Chinese traditionally go door-to-door to wish
their friends and family well over the Lunar New Year, but modernity is fast
taking over with text messaging now all the rage.
According to Beijing Mobile, it handled more than one billion outgoing short
messages on Lunar New Year's Eve alone.
On Thursday, Xinhua estimated more than 10 billion text messages would be sent
over the week-long holidays that end on February 16, up 200 million from last
year.
``I have two mobile phones and both were full, so I had to spend a lot of time
deleting so that new messages may come in,'' Fang Zhou, a 40-year-old white
collar worker in Beijing, was quoted as saying.
Sending a message in the mainland costs just 0.1 yuan (HK$0.09).
Short message service (SMS) has become a major industry in the world's most
populous country with more than 330 million mobile phones users sending 217.7
billion text messages last year, Xinhua said.
Traditionally during Lunar New Year, people walk long distances to see their
relatives or friends, expressing good wishes for the year ahead.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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