China Unicom, one of the country's leading mobile phone operators, added 2.8 million new subscribers in January and February, company sources said on Wednesday.

At the end of February, China Unicom's had 145.2 million subscribers. In February the company added 1.46 million new users, while in January it added 1.38 million subscribers.

China Unicom is listed on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

In February, China Telecom, a leading fix-lined telephone operator in the nation, added 210,000 new fixed-line phone costumers. In January it had 250,000 new costumers, company sources said.

Li Ping, vice president of China Telecom, said his company's declining growth rate is due to the expansion of mobile phone subscribers.

At the end of February, the company's total subscribers numbered 223.5 million.

Data from the Ministry of Information Industry show there are in China 829 million phone users, 461 million of them used mobile phones while 368 million were fixed-line phone users. The gap between the number of mobile phone and fixed-line phone users continues to widen and is soon expected to reach 100 million.

The ministry predicts the number of new phone subscribers will increase by 72 million to reach 900 million nationwide in 2007. The increase will include almost 60 million new mobile phone users.

Source: Xinhua