Chinese Vice Minister of Information Industry Xie Guohua said on Tuesday that China now has over 100 million Internet users and that over 30.1 million users have broadband Internet services.

At the opening ceremony of the 6th China (Beijing) Mobile Telecommunications International Forum, Xie also said over the past years, China's telephone users increased by 100 million each year, and its on-line population ranks second in the world after the United States.

China's mobile telecommunications industry has seen rapid growth since 1988, when the country's first mobile telephone system was put into operation, he said.

At that time, China had only 3,000 mobile phone users. The number has increased 60 million each year over the past three years and has exceeded 358 million thus far, Xie said.

The minister said that mobile telecommunications business accounts for 44.6 percent of the whole industry and has become an important force to promote the rapid growth of the telecommunications industry.

The Ministry of Information Industry's statistics said that in the first five months of this year, China's telephone users increased 44.78 million, with the country's total telephone users amounting to 692 million.

(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2005)