The number of Chinese broadband users has hit 122 million, the highest in the world, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing an official from the information industry authority. 

Sixty percent of the netizens surfed on the Internet via broadband, said Jiang Yaoping, vice minister of the ministry of information industry, at a work conference of China Telecommunications Corporation on Saturday.

Last year, more than 30 percent of China Telecom's income came from non-phone services, rising from 5.5 percent in 2002, the report said.

One-third of the new broadband users are farmers, where the demand for the service is high, China Telecom officials said.

The increased user number boosted the non-voice income of fixed-phone carriers, accelerating the transformation of traditional phone carriers into comprehensive information service providers, the report said.

(Shanghai Daily December 24, 2007)