China has 900 mn mobile phone users

BEIJING, CHINA: China's mobile phone users grew by 41.39 million in the first four months of 2011 to 900.39 million, nearly two-thirds of the country's population, officials said Tuesday.

According to the ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT), the number of telephone subscribers exceeded 1.19 billion by the end of April, with the number of fixed-line subscribers dropping by 2.93 million to 291.45 million.

By the end of April, third generation (3G) mobile telecommunication users in China reached 67.57 million, 20.52 million more than that of the end of 2010, Xinhua reported quoting a posting on MIIT website Tuesday.

The number of broadband internet users increased by 9.58 million in the Jan-April period to 135.92 million, while the number of dial-up connection users dropped by 130,000 to 5.77 million.

China's telecommunication industry reported a 9.4 percent growth year-on-year for the first four months to 308.36 billion yuan ($47.44 billion).