The number of Chinese fixed and mobile telephone subscribers has hit 840 million and is expected to top 1 billion by the end of 2009, an industry official said on Friday.

The number of phone subscribers is growing by 100 million every year and 60 percent of them are mobile subscribers, said Wei Jun, an official in charge of planning at the Ministry of Information Industry.

The number of mobile users is expected to reach 520 million this year, up from 460 million in 2006.

Wei said the country had been working to extend telecom services into underdeveloped rural areas and that telephones are now available in nearly 99 percent of all Chinese villages. The figure is expected to hit 100 percent this year.

By 2010, the information industry will hopefully record 10 trillion yuan (US$1.3 trillion) in gross income and will make up 10 percent of China's gross domestic product, Wei told a conference on China's semi-conductor market that opened in Shanghai Wednesday.

He said by 2010, more than 200 million Chinese will be using the internet, about 15 percent of the country's population of 1.3 billion.

China has the world's second-largest population of internet users after the United States, with 137 million people online, according to the ministry.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2007)

 

 

Mobile phone users in China are expected to top 600 million by 2010, predicts the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) on Wednesday.

It means 45 out of 100 people will be connected to the wireless network, the ministry says.

In 2007, the number of China's mobile phone users is expected to top 520 million, up from 460 million in 2006, according to figures from the Ministry of Information Industry.

More fixed-line users will choose to use cell phones as the price of handsets drop, along with a decline in air time charges, according to the MII.

China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987. 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.

The ministry predicts China's fixed-line users will top 400 million by 2010.

The number of Chinese netizens will top 200 million, accounting for 15 percent of the country's total population.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2007)