Morgan Dynda and Kate Moore from the United States placed second splitting $20,000, and Juan Ignacio Aufranc and Agustina Montegna from Argentina placed third splitting $10,000. In addition to the main competition, the players attempted to set a new Guinness World Records® record for fastest texting, using the LG enV3 handset. A new record was set by Pedro Matias, age 27, from Portugal who typed a 264-character text in just 1 minute 59 seconds, thus shaving 23 seconds off the previous record, set by Finland’s Arttu Harkki on April 27, 2005.

The LG Mobile World Cup took place on January 14th in New York City at the historic Gotham Hall. During the competition, players competed in various texting missions, including break the wall, monster popping, moving pillar, running relay and racing replay. In each mission, contestants were tasked with the challenge of typing in phrases on their LG mobile devices exactly as they appeared on nearby LG plasma screens with no typos or abbreviations while trying to be quicker than their opponents.

Finalists selection for the LG Mobile World Cup began in May 2009 with a series of national texting contests across 13 countries including Canada, Indonesia, Portugal, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Korea, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. After several months, 26 contestants were chosen to compete in teams of two in the hopes of becoming the word’s fastest texter.

[via engadget]

This year, LG expanded MOBILE WORLDCUP from four to sixteen participating countries and a total prize pool of US $1 million. The first National Championship will be held at the Jakarta Theater in Indonesia on the 15th of August four weeks after the commencement of the national league and other related mobile events. The 200 fastest texters will compete for the final prize of 100 million rupiah (approximately US $9,900). The National Championship will continue from July to October across five continents and 13 countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Russia, China and South Korea.

The final World Championship will be held in the U.S. in November with the champions from 16 national rounds –- including the U.S. and Canada where winners have already been named — competing for the maximum prize of US $100,000. The ultimate competition to find the world’s fastest texter will take place using LG mobile devices in front of a live audience over several rounds.