Around 12.5 million text messages were exchanged via the Belgian mobile phone network between 8 pm on Saturday evening and 8 am on Sunday morning. Texting remains a popular way to exchange New Year’s greetings. According to figures from the country’s two largest mobile phone companies Proximus and Orange the number of text messages sent was close to the number that were sent on New Year’s Eve 2021.
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Texting remains a popular way to say "Happy New Year"
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Proximus handled more than 7.1 million text messages on its network last night, twice as many as on an average night during 2022. The steady decline in the popularity of text messaging that was apparent in recent years seems to be stagnating. The number of text messages sent on New Year’s Eve 2022 was down just 1% on New Years Eve 2021, Proximus said in a press release.
The decline in texting was more pronounced among Orange customers, down 3.8% on last year. Nevertheless, Orange still recorded 5.4 million text messages sent between 8pm yesterday and 8am this morning. There was a peak of 977 messages per second at midnight. The number of text messages sent by Proximus and Orange customers has fallen by half in four years though.
Orange also notes that people seem to prefer to call each other in person to exchange wishes. Orange recorded more than 5 million phone conversations in 12 hours, a 57% increase compared with New Year’s Eve 2021.
It’s a similar story among Proximus customers with 4.2 million mobile calls being made, also up 57% on the previous year. The number of calls was back up to pre-COVID levels. This could point to people partying elsewhere than in their homes.
Meanwhile, Proximus noted an increase of almost 20% in mobile data used by its customers compared with New Year’s Eve 2021. The increase was even more pronounced among Orange customers with 26% more data being used than was the case this time last year. Orange says that the most popular applications for exchanging New Year’s wishes are Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.