On average, each German sent 1.8 SMS a day last year, the regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur announced, saying that it arrived at the figure on the basis of data from the mobile operators.

Approx. 55bn SMS were sent in total in 2011. This represents an increase of over 30 percent compared to the previous year (2010: 41.5bn). Growth in the sending of SMS thus continues unabated.

The large increase has been put down primarily to intensive use of flat rate tariffs.

The number of mobile subscribers also rose again significantly in 2011. While in 2010 there were 108.85m subscribers, this number increased last year to 114.13m. On average, each German now owns approx. 1.4 SIM cards. More than every second SIM card is a prepaid card.