As the number of camera phones used is constantly growing, and now over a half of the UK's phones are picture-capable, there is no surprise in the increased use of picture messaging.

Therefore, an amazing 88 million picture messages (MMS) were sent throughout the third quarter of 2006 in the UK. Almost 1 million MMS messages were sent per day throughout July, August and September, while the highest number of sent picture messages was recorded in October, when more than 30 million MMS messages were sent across the networks, according to the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

It has become quite common for people in the UK to receive new mobile phones for Christmas and one or two megapixel cameras can be found in most mobile phones that users own. As more and more users become accustomed to camera phones, the number of picture messages sent will also grow, due to users' need to share the photos they take with their mobile phones, with their friends or family.

Although sending picture messages is getting more popular as each day passes by, that doesn't mean that MMS messages are anywhere close to recording the same success as SMS messages.

Over 3.8 billion SMS messages were sent between UK mobile users throughout November, according to the MDA, which is 1 billion more than the total of messages sent during the same period in 2005.

So basically, that means that around 126 million SMS messages were sent each day, and according to MDA calculations, over 37 billion text messages have been sent throughout 2006.