China has 467 million cell phone users by the end of January, statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) showed on Thursday.

As mobile fees decreased and the rural market for cell phones continued to open up, the number of cell phone users expanded rapidly. In January, the figure surged by 6.33 million.

A total of 41.16 billion text messages were sent by cell phone users in January, up 22.1 percent year on year.

According to the MII, the number of telephone users has topped 830 million, with that of fixed-line telephone users reaching 368 million.

Source: Xinhua