Mobile subscribers top 320m

The number of Chinese mobile phone subscribers topped 320m in October, a growth of 55.081m in the first 10 months of 2004, officials statistics showed. Nationwide that works at out at 24.8 mobile phones per 100 Chinese, compared with 49 per 100 in the US, 64 per 100 in Japan and 83 per 100 in the UK, according to the most recent available figures. Meanwhile the the number of texts sent continued to soar standing at 176.06bn for the first 10 months – a rise of 62% year-on-year. Growth in fixed line subscribers continued to trail mobiles slightly, growing by 47.94m in the 10 months to October to stand at 310m, or 24.5 fixed-line subscribers for every 100 Chinese.