China sees surge in 3G subscribers

The number of people subscribing to third-generation (3G) mobile phone services in China increased by 74.22 million in the first nine months of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Thursday. Xinhua news agency reports that there were 1.37 billion phone users in the country by the end of September, according to Zhang Feng, director of telecommunication development department at the ministry.

The number of Internet broadband users rose 20.57 million to 550 million in the first three quarters, and Internet penetration rate reached 41.1 percent at the end of last month.

Main business revenues for China's telecommunication industry jumped 9.2 percent year-on-year to reach 801 billion yuan (US$127.14 billion) in the first nine months. Third-quarter revenues also rose 9.2 percent year-on-year, down 0.6 percentage points from the same period last year.