Verizon Wireless customers sent and received more than 10 billion text messages (or SMS messages) in June 2007, a company record and the highest reported total of any wireless service provider in the nation. Also in June, Verizon Wireless customers sent and received more than 200 million multimedia messages (MMS), which include picture and video messages. Both monthly figures represent an increase of more than 100 percent from September 2006, when the company broke the five billion monthly text message threshold for the first time.

“We’ve delivered exponential growth in our messaging services for two primary reasons: our innovative devices, such as the enV, that make it easy to text, and our innovative messaging capabilities that allow customers to communicate how they want,” said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless.

“And we always look for ways to make messaging more fun, social and interactive. In fact, we just became the first - and only - wireless company to offer customers the ability to directly post pictures and videos to places such as Facebook using messaging.”

Verizon Wireless currently offers more than two dozen phones that can send and receive text, picture and video messages. If a person were to send a single text message every 15 seconds, it would take more than 4,750 years of continuous texting to send 10 billion text messages and more than 95 years to send 200 million multimedia messages.