Holiday greetings are most often sent via SMS and MMS

• 95% of people send their Christmas and New Year's greetings via text or picture messages, with each person sending an average of 28 messages
• Only one-fifth of the population send more than five greetings by mail, one-third by e-mail
• 43% of us send uniform greetings to our family and friends

Prague, 18 December 2008 - Today, we are bringing you the second part of the results of the new T-Mobile Insight Out survey conducted by TNS Aisa. Last time, we focused mainly on people's attitudes to Christmas and Christmas presents. This time, we will have a closer look on the popularity of different forms of holiday greetings. Every year we find out and compare how many messages were sent by our customers on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. How do greetings sent via mobile phones fare compared to the other forms of greetings?

SMS and MMS are by far the most popular forms of greetings
Christmas and New Year's greetings are most often sent via text or picture messages. This is typical mainly for T-Mobile customers and young people. Other forms lag far behind, in aggregate being used by about one-third of the population. Every form has its specificities: hand-written greetings are sent rather by O2 customers (24%) and elderly people; mobile phone calls are used more often by Vodafone customers (16%).

Sending greetings by mail - even electronic mail - on the wane
The popularity of traditional Christmas and New Year's greetings sent by mail has been on the wane in the past years. Even though almost everyone receives at least one greeting card, only a few of us actually write them: only 20% of people send more than five such greetings.

E-mails, which have been otherwise gradually replacing ordinary mail as a means of communication, are not a very popular form of sending holiday greetings either. Although two-thirds of the population send at least one e-mail with Christmas or New Year's wishes, only one third of them send more than five such messages. Approximately one-fourth of people do not receive any e-mail greetings at all. In contrast, all people send an average of 28 SMS greetings during Christmas and on New Year's Eve, with approximately equal numbers being sent on both occasions.

Christmas and New Year's SMS
Only 6% of people do not send SMS Christmas wishes. The remaining 94% send about 14 such messages each. Every tenth person writes or receives more than twenty Christmas text messages.

Only very few of us do not send any text messages during New Year's Eve celebrations and almost everybody receives an SMS greeting during that time. Approximately half of us write or receive more than ten text messages with New Year's wishes. Other than that, there are basically no differences in the volume of Christmas and New Year's greeting messages.

Only one in twenty does not send any text messages with Christmas and New Year's greetings. Only 2% of T-Mobile customers and 12% of Vodafone customers do not send such messages. Nine percent of people aged 46-59 do not send any text messages during the Christmas holidays.

Mobile phones are a popular tool for sending greetings but we do not fare so well when it comes to originality. Forty-three percent of us send a uniform SMS or MMS greeting to our family and friends.

T-Mobile Czech Republic, a member of the international telecommunications group Deutsche Telekom, has almost 6.2 million customers, the number-one operator in the Czech market. T-Mobile is an integrated operator: in addition to telecommunications services, it offers comprehensive ICT solutions not only for companies, but also for other organizations and individuals. It provides outstanding services in the high-speed network, which was proved repeatedly by benchmark testing performed by umlaut (former P3) with Best-in-Test seal.

T-Mobile Czech Republic places emphasis on taking a responsible approach to the environment and society. It adheres to fair business practices, helps beneficial applications and services to see the light of day, supports non-profit organizations, small businesses and individuals, and lends a helping hand whenever crisis situations arise. The company’s employees serve as volunteers in many places across the entire Czech Republic.

More information about the company is available at www.t-mobile.cz, www.t-press.cz (the portal for journalists) and www.t-mobile.cz/pomahame (information on the company’s CSR activities).

Contact details of the press unit: press@t-press.cz.