The number of mobile internet users in China has reached 1.17 billion by the end of the first half of 2017, said the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on July 19.

Compared with the same period of the last year, the figure saw an increase of 13.6%, with 79.38 million new users in the first half of 2017.

In addition, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is also enjoying a larger popularity, serving some 103 million Chinese families. The service gained 16 million new users from Jan. to Jun. this year.

The ministry said that total business volume of telecommunication industry reached nearly 1.1 trillion RMB ($163 billion), up by 53.5% from the same period of 2016.

The revenue of mobile data communication and mobile Internet service totaled 274.6 billion RMB, rising by 29.6% year-on-year and accounting for 42.6% of the total business revenue. It has contributed 10.3% to the growth of telecommunication revenue.

By the end of June, the number of fixed-line broadband subscribers of China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom totaled 322 million. Currently the number of users with access to fiber is 261 million, up 32.89 million compared with that of 2016 and accounting for 80.9% of the total number of fixed-line broadband subscribers.

Mobile social networking applications are still impacting traditional voice and short message services. In the first half of 2017, the country’s outgoing mobile phone traffic decreased by 4.7% year-on-year to 1.34 trillion minutes, and the total length of calls made through fixed lines was 78.12 billion minutes.

Compared with the shrinking of traditional services, data communication services are growing. The country consumed a total data of 8.89 billion gigabytes of data in the first 6 months of 2017, a year-on-year growth of 136.8%.