China's 12 billion New Year messages

From Physorg.com:

"Telecom officials in Beijing forecast 12 billion text messages were sent over the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday.

The estimate was made public by China's Ministry of Information Industry on Jan. 29, the first day of "Year of the Dog" or "Spring Festival" celebrations. The ministry estimate runs until Feb. 4, the end of the official seven-day break."

"There are few examples more stunning of how China's numbers are numbing than the progression of SMS statistics over the last five years. After breaking the billion mark for the millennium the Chinese sent 1.89 billion messages in 2001; 90 billion in 2002; 137.1 billion in 2003; 217.7 billion in 2004, then 304.6 billion last year."