China to Become World's Largest Phone MarketChina will become the No.1 telephone market in the world in five years, Jiang Shaobing, an official with the Ministry of Information Industry, said Sunday at the Fourth China Fair for Investment and Trade, which is being held in the port city of Xiamen, in southeast China's Fujian Province.Jiang said that the number of fixed-line and mobile phone users is estimated to exceed 600 million in 2005. China now has 120 million fixed-line phone users, with more than 18 million registered in the first six months this year, and 60 million mobile phone subscribers including 16 million registered in first half of the year. The numbers of fixed-line phone users and mobile phone subscribers rank second and third respectively, in the world. However, there are only 14.7 phones per 100 Chinese people, or 32.1 phones per 100 persons in urban areas. There are 4.7 mobile phones for every 100 people. He added that, by June this year, the number of Internet users in China exceeded 16 million. In another development, sources from the Ministry of Information Industry said that the sales volume of China's electronic information products will amount to 1 trillion yuan (about 120 billion U.S. dollars) this year, or 9 percent of the world's total. By 2005, the sales volume is expected to double the 2000 figure. |
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