More than 16 billion text messages were sent last year according to the latest government figures.
The year end figure was confirmed with the announcement of December's text messaging figure of 1.6 billion, an increase of more than 100 million on November 2002.
December's figure takes the daily average to 52 million compared to 42 million in December 2001 and 24 million in December 2000.
Mike Short, chairman of the Mobile Data Association (MDA) said: "It has been a great year for text messaging."
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