STELIOS BOURAS

Greeks were busily typing well wishes on their mobile phones over the festive season, sending over 294 million SMS messages, according to data made public yesterday.

Cosmote, the country’s largest mobile phone operator, said its customers sent more than 128 million text messages between December 24 and January 1, representing an annual increase of 47.4 percent.

“The number of SMS messages sent on Christmas Day exceeded 16.5 million, while, on New Year’s Day, it reached some 26.24 million,” the company, owned by OTE telecom, said in a statement.

Cosmote rival Wind, controlled by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, reported an 18 percent rise in SMS messages for the same period to 96.3 million euros.

Vodafone said its customers sent 70 million messages for the week, up 1.4 percent on last year.

Cosmote and Wind said their networks successfully handled the demand arising from the extra traffic.