The Hindu : Business : Mobile phone users up 8 % in China

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Friday, Jun 27, 2008
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Mobile phone users up 8 % in China

Pallavi Aiyar

BEIJING: Almost half of the people in the world’s most populous country, China, now use mobile phones. The number of cellular phone accounts have risen more than 8 per cent since the start of the year to 592 million, according to a Xinhua news agency report, quoting China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

On the flip side, the report revealed that the number of landline or fixed-line users had actually dropped by 6.5 million to 358 million in the same period.

The sharp increase in mobile accounts is largely to be explained by rate cuts announced by mobile operators to draw more customers. The new figures also reflect a growing trend for Chinese customers to opt solely for mobile service.

The telecommunications boom in China has turned the country’s dominant mobile carrier, China Mobile, into the phone company with the world’s biggest subscriber base of 400 million.

The new figures come close on the heels of the announcement that the Internet population in China has outnumbered that in the U.S. having reached 221 million by the end of February this year.

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