More than 50 million text messages were sent every day in January, breaking yet another record for mobile phone usage.

Last month saw 1.65 billion messages sent with the average number of messages sent each day rising from 53 million from 45 million during the same month last year.

December 2002 saw an average of 52 million text messages sent each day.

The figures from the the Mobile Data Association, which tracks SMS activity, confound expectations that the number of text messages sent would begin to level off as mobile phone ownership reaches saturation point.

The MDA, which records usage data among Vodafone, mmO2, Orange and T-Mobile subscribers, said it expected about 20 billion SMS texts to be sent in 2003, up from 16.8 billion last year.

The public's growing love affair with text messaging was illustrated by the huge number of messages sent on key dates.

On New Year's Day this year 102 million text messages were sent , 59% more than in 2002.

On Valentine's Day 78 million messages were sent compared with 57.5 million on the same day last year.