The mobile phone subscribers in China soared to 592 million by the end of May/2008, nearly half of its 1.3 billion population.
The number rose by 44.8 million in the first five months of this year as mobile operators cut phone rates to attract customers, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Ministry of Information Industry. It said the number of fixed-line accounts fell by 6.5 million to 358 million. The fixed-line users, however, dropped by 6.5 million to 358 million.
China has by far the world’s largest population of mobile phone users, with China’s dominant mobile carrier — China Mobile — being the world’s biggest phone company by number of subscribers, with more than 400 million. But several million have multiple phones for personal and business use, so the total number of subscribers is smaller than the number of accounts.
The telecom sector reported a revenue of 330.6 billion yuan (48billion U.S dollars) in the five months — period that included an industry restructuring aimed at creating more robust competitors to China Mobile — which represents an increase of 9.6 percent from a year ago.
Meanwhile, fixed-asset investment in the telecom industry rose 2.7 percent to 75.1 billion yuan (11 billion U.S dollars).
