The number of mobile phone subscribers in China reached a record 320 million at the end of October, said the Ministry of Information Industry on Monday.

This is a rise of 55.081 million over the end of last year. On the average, China has 5.5 million new mobile phone subscribers a month in the first ten months this year, said the ministry in its press release. At the end of October, there were 24.8 mobile phones for every one hundred Chinese.

Along with the increase of mobile phone subscribers, the business of short message also witnessed a sharp rise of 62 percent year-on-year to more than 176.06 billion messages in first ten months, said the ministry.

Though facing heated competition brought by mobile communications, the number of fixed-line subscribers rose 47.94 million over the end of last year to 310 million by the end of October. By then, there were 24.5 fixed-line subscribers every one hundred Chinese, the ministry said Statistics with the ministry show the total number of telephone users in China, including both mobile phone users and fixed-line users, reached 635.72 million by the end of October.

The ministry also said that in the first ten months China's total revenue of post and telecommunications reached 477.14 billion yuan (57.7 billion US dollars), up 12.2 percent over the same period last year.

The postal revenue in the period was 45.46 billion yuan (about 5.5 billion US dollars), a rise of 2.3 percent year-on-year, and the revenue of telecommunications hit 431.68 billion yuan (about 52.2 billion US dollars), up 13.3 percent year-on-year. The fixed assets investment in telecommunications reached 155.62 billion yuan (18.8 billion US dollars) by the end of October, up 9.6 percent year-on-year.

China's mobile phone users outnumbered fixed-line phone subscribers in October 2003. China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987, and it took a decade for its number of subscribers to jump to 10 million.

Four years later, the number of the country's mobile phone subscribers ranked the first in the world.