New Record Claimed for Phone Text Message

SINGAPORE – Technology-obsessed Singapore may have claimed a fresh world record Monday for punching in the fastest mobile phone text message after a competition that demanded a flair for dexterity, and considerable geekiness.

Student Kimberly Yeo, 23, managed to type a fiendishly complicated 26-word message on her phone in 43.66 seconds, organizer Singapore Telecommunications said in a statement Monday.

Her effort – in heats held at the weekend – could beat by a wide margin the existing text message record of 67 seconds, set last year by Briton James Trusler in Sydney, Australia, it said.

The new record bid will be submitted to Guinness World Records, the international arbiter of all record-setting feats, the company said.

Contestants had to type: “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.”

Using the phone’s predictive text function – that guesses words as letters are typed in – was not allowed, and the target phrase’s punctuation needed to be spot on, too.

Like many of her compatriots, Yeo is an avid sender of text messages, sending about 50 a day, or 1,500 a month, Singapore Telecommunications said.

Mobile phones are now commonplace in the Southeast Asian city-state, especially among teenagers and young adults. Four out of five people in Singapore already have a cell phone, among the highest densities anywhere.

Singapore Telecommunications, which runs Singapore’s most extensive phone network, said its system now handles 9 million text messages a day, up from 3.5 million to 4 million in 2001-02.