Macao boasted 501,900 mobile phones at the end of the third quarter, a year-on-year rise of 22 percent, according to official statistics issued here on Friday.

The figures from the government-run Statistics and Census Service showed that the number of fixed telephone lines stood almost flat at 173,800, compared with the same quarter in 2004.

The number of Internet subscribers reached 85,700 in the third quarter, an year-on-year increase of 14.8 percent, the figures showed.

The statistics also displayed that the number of licensed vehicles reached 151,000 in the quarter, a year-on-year rise of 8. 6 percent.

The Macao Special Administrative Region, with a population of merely 480,000, has stayed in a fast pace in the economic growth since it returned to the motherland in 1999.

Source: Xinhua