Chinese mobile users are expected to reach above 520 million at the end of this year, predicted the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

The prediction is made based on the average monthly rise of five million mobile subscribers in the previous years.

More fixed-line users would choose to use cell phones with the dropping price of handsets and continuous decline of the charging fees, according to the MII.

The number of cell phone users reached 460 million at the end of 2006, 67.677 million more than the end of the previous year. On the average, every 100 Chinese people have 35.3 cell phones.

China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987 and it took a decade for the number of subscribers to reach 10 million. Four years later, the country had the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world.

(Xinhua News Agency February 15, 2007)