SMS beeps over greeting cards

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">''Before the sun sets on this year and the networks get jammed, let me wish you a happy New Year." At least 95 per cent of Kolkata''s mobile phone users must received this New Year greeting and forwarded it on to others. <br /><br />Indeed, with the city''s mobile user community going up in 2003-2004 (aided by the entry of two new mobile service providers), the Kolkatan has taken the electronic way to connect with the loved ones.<br /><br />"SMS is the easiest way to send greetings because it''s cost effective and one can just cell broadcast a message to all the numbers on the phone book and forget about it," said Adesh Kapoor, a young corporate executive who has paid Rs 700 as SMS charges to friends and family all across the country over the New Year week. <br /><br />And even as the Kolkatan enjoys the relatively new ''mobile'' status of the city, it is the old world charm of sending greeting cards that has taken a back seat. The numbers, suggest big names in the card retail industry, has gone down far below last year''s. <br /><br />"The card sales over December, the month that usually registers the maximum sales in greeting cards, has gone down by a few thousands," said Arun, in-charge of the cards section in one of the largest book and gift shop in the city. <br /><br />However, there has been a slight rise in the volume of greeting cards with text in Bengali. <br /><br />Kalyan Basu, an individual card manufacturer who''s been printing cards with Bengali text for the last two years and has seen his sales soar by 8000 cards last year, explained, "The volume of English language cards have gone down for sure, but because of the novelty value people are sending cards with Bengali texts even on New Year." <br /><br />"Statistics show that the cards that we are selling most, even after the SMS boom and e-cards came in, are the romantic cards and birthday cards," said Poonam Shaw of another leading gift store in the city, adding, "New Year cards are mostly bought in bulk by corporates. They prefer the cards printed by the NGOs." <br /><span style="" font-style:="" italic="">himika.chaudhuri@timesgroup.com</span></div> </div>