China's mobile phone users exceeded 515 million by the end of
August this year, with a monthly rise of 6.8 million on average,
according to statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry
(MII).
Chinese cell phone users had sent a total of 378.5 billion short
text messages by the end of August, up 38.3 percent year on
year.
Since last year, China's rural areas have seen a continued
demand for cell phones, which also boosted the handset output, the
MII said.
According to the ministry, China produced 347.6 million mobile
phones between January and August, up 28 percent over the same
period last year.
Meanwhile, the number of fixed-line subscribers remained almost
the same as last month's 372 million and the number of newly-added
fixed-line users averaged only 579,000 per month, barely one tenth
of that of mobile users.
The ministry also said that the revenue of the country's post
and telecommunications services reached 475.29 billion yuan
(US$62.5 billion) in the first eight months this year.
(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2007)