Statistics released March 23 by the Ministry of Information Industry showed that China's mobile phone popularity reached 25.9 percent, fixed-line telephone 24.9 percent.

By the end of February 2005, China saw an increase of 16.48 million telephone users to reach a total of 660 million users, including a growth of 7.23 million fixed-line users (319 million in total) and 9.25 million mobile users (344 million in total). The percentage of administrative villages covered nationwide by fixed-line telephone reached 89.9 percent.

During the first two months of this year, China's communications service completed an income of 97.64 billion yuan, up 7.6 percent (over the same period of the previous year, same below), including a telecommunication income of 88.63 billion yuan, up 7.9 percent, and a post income of 9.01 billion yuan, up 5.4 percent.

The number of short-messages reached 43.21 billion pieces, up 36.2 percent. During the peak period of Spring Festival (February 8-15), a total of 11 billion pieces of short messages were sent, an increase of 1.2 billion pieces.

By People's Daily Online