Filipino cell phone users have truly developed a culture of texting after the Philippines retained its title as the text messaging capital of the world - sending a remarkable 1.39 billion text messages from a subscriber base of just 50 million.

At $0.024 per text message, local mobile phone firms obviously celebrated the new year with a bang.

The texting figures were recorded by Acision, the messaging and charging company of choice for over 300 network operators and service providers worldwide. Acision especially noted that the global SMS traffic over the 2007/2008 New Year period increased by 30 percent compared to the same period last year.

Around the world, phone users sent a staggering 43 billion text messages to wish their loved ones a happy New Year - of which more than 23 billion were successfully processed through Acision's systems.

These statistics clearly illustrate the increasing role in the communication habits of billions of people that SMS continues to play. Growth was strong in both mature and emerging markets - in Portugal, SMS traffic almost tripled across the festive period compared to last year and Dutch operator KPN saw its messaging traffic double on New Years Eve.

But the most astounding growth figures came from developing markets, where India's 220 million mobile subscribers sent over a billion text messages - a 300 percent increase to their day to day traffic levels as well as Philippines with 1.39 billion text.

"Messaging represents a significant slice of mobile operator revenues, and events like New Years Eve demonstrate how critical it is for operators to ensure a reliable and speedy service," said Steven van Zanen, Head of Messaging Futures, Acision. "One of our operator customers' infrastructure operated under peaks of 19,000 messages sent per second without congestion or delay. The New Year figures are eagerly anticipated each year and this year's record traffic levels again do not disappoint."

Acision is the partner of choice in high volume mobile data services for the world's leading network operators and service providers, with over 50 percent of global messaging traffic generated through the company's platforms.