Christmas and New Year are some of the busiest times of the year for the short messages and mobile services of mobile operators in Bulgaria.

Over the Festive Season, Bulgarians sent millions of messages to friends and relatives, and many subscribers were not able to access mobile services because of the heavy traffic.

On January 2, Bulgaria’s second-largest mobile operator Globul said that its customers had sent 4.3 million SMSes between December 24 2007 and January 1 2008.

On January 8, Vivatel media officer Ani Koshnicharova told The Sofia Echo that the company’s clients had sent 2.1 million SMSes at Christmas and 2.2 million at New Year. “This is an exceptionally good indication for Vivatel, bearing in mind that Vivatel clients’ recently exceeded one million,” Koshnicharova said.

On January 8 Viliana Todorova, public relations officer for Bulgaria’s largest mobile operator, MobilTel, told The Sofia Echo that their clients had sent 16.2 million SMSes during the holidays. At Christmas, there were 9.6 million SMSes, and between 8pm on December 31 2007 and 5pm on January 1 2008, 6.6 million SMSes were sent. 

“On December 25 2007 the M-Tel system registered our fifth million subscriber,” Todorova said. “That means that right now, M-Tel clients number more than five million,” she said.