China phone user numbers cross 1.1 billion

The number of phone users in China continues to rise and in the first five months the Chinese phone subscriber base increased by 40.8 million, surpassing the 1.1 billion user mark by the end of May.

"China added 40.8 million phone users during the January-May period, bringing the nationwide total to more than 1.1 billion in a country with a 1.3 billion population," the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said.

China's Xinhua news agency reported that during the period the number of fixed-line telephone users fell by about 7.8 million to306 million while mobile phone user numbers shot up by 48.5 million to 796 million.

China's broad-band internet user base widened nearly 9.8 million to 113 million by the end of May, the agency said.

The telecom industry recorded around ¥1.23 trillion worth of business during the five month period which saw an increase of 21.6 per cent year on year, it said.