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Number of Phone Users Doubles
China's mobile phone users doubled last year with 6.7 per cent of Chinese people now owning their own phones, a report from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) revealed Wednesday.
About 42 million people bought mobile phones in 2000 making a total of 85.26 million by the end of last year.
About 42 per cent of total telecom income came from mobile phone businesses, according to the report.
"Mobile phones have become the most important driving force in the development of China's telecom industry," the MII report said.
In the same period, the number of the fixed-line telephone users increased by 35.6 million, reaching 144 million. The coverage of fixed-line telephones reached 20 per cent of the rural population while the number is as high as 39 per cent in cities.
But the fixed-line side was still overshadowed by the outstanding performance of mobile phone businesses.
In the year, the annual increase of mobile phone users for the first time surpassed those of fixed-line telephones, according to the report.
Mobile phone users increased 41.97 million in the period, compared with 35.6 million for fixed-line telephones.
China Unicom, the major competitor of the country's top mobile telecom operator China Mobile, also reported rapid growth in the year.
It controls 22 per cent of the domestic mobile telecom market.
There were 215 million fixed-line and mobile phone users in China by the end of last year. The scale and capacity of the nation's telecom network jumped to No 2 in the world during the year.
The country's telecom sector invested 214.4 billion yuan (US$25.89 billion) in fixed assets last year -- a 25 per cent increase on the previous period.
China exported 22.75 million units of mobile phones last year earning the sector US$2.6 billion.
The mobile communications and Internet market in China will match or surpass the United States and becomes No 1 within five years, according to Wu Jichuan, minister of MII.
Asia-based research firm Strategic Intelligence said recently that by 2005, China would have 240 million mobile subscribers, making it the world's largest market.
Source: chinadaily.com.cn
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