MIIT Publishes Jan-Oct Telecom Statistics

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has published telecom industry statistics for the first 10 months of 2008. The figures show that during the 10-month period, total telecom industry revenue for China came to RMB 679.8 bln, up 8.1% compared to the same period last year. Fixed line subscribers decreased by 14.2 mln to 351.4 mln and mobile subscribers increased by 80 mln to 627.3 mln. Dial-up Internet subscribers decreased by 4.6 mln subscribers to 14.8 mln, while broadband Internet accounts increased by 15.8 mln subscribers to 82.2 mln.

A total of 581 bln SMS messages were sent during the first 10 months of the year, up 20.1% year-on-year.

For the month of October, national fixed-line telephone subscribers decreased by 1.7 mln, and mobile subscribers increased by 3.2 mln. The relatively low growth for mobile subscribers was due to China Unicom's CDMA network being handed over to China Telecom, which is using a different method for calculating total CDMA subscribers than that used by Unicom.