China hits 1 billion mobile phone users

Yes, there are over a billion mobile phone users in China. Considering the population of the country is around 1.3-billion, that means that more than 76% of Chinese citizens have one. Wow.

The latest stats, released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), show that there are approximately 1 030 052 000 mobile users in the country. The new information, reported on Chinese language site Sina Tech and later picked up by Tech in Asia, confirms previous speculation about China’s huge mobile phone market. Mobile phone subscriptions were above the 900-million mark in January, so it was really just a matter of time.

According to the MIIT, more than 43-million new devices were activated during the first four months of the year. It’s had a predictably negative effect on land-lines, as the number of land-line users in the country dropped by more than a million in the same period. Now only there are only 283 758 000 fixed-line users.

Because of its huge population, stats about China are generally quite staggering. The country has over 520-million internet users — and a third of them go online using their cellphones. Although the smartphone market is increasing, currently only 152 million people connect to the internet using a 3G phone — many still use 2G networks.