Chinese send more texts during holiday

Chinese sent a record 31.17 billion text messages during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, up 8.3 percent from a year earlier, new data showed.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a Tuesday statement that the number of messages peaked on Feb. 9, or Lunar New Year's Eve, with 12.01 billion messages sent that day.

Spring Festival, which lasted from Feb. 9 to 15 this year, is China's biggest holiday.