China's telecom sector income up 8.1% in Jan-Oct

Dec. 1, 2008 (China Knowledge) - The income of China's telecom sector registered in the first ten months this year amounted to RMB 679.79 billion, representing a year-on-year rise of 8.1%, according to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Over the Jan.-Oct. period, the business volume went up 22.5% from a year earlier to RMB 1.85 trillion and the fixed investment of the telecom sector rose 9.9% year-on-year to RMB 185.05 billion.

Of the total, income from mobile phone business and data traffic business increased 15.7% and 38% year-on-year to RMB 372.65 billion and RMB 66.02 billion,

accounting for 54.8% and 9.7% of the country's telecom sector income, respectively, while that from fixed-line business and long-distance phone business dropped 7.9% and 6.1% to RMB 143.32 billion and RMB 96.85 billion, accounting for 21.1% and 14.2% respectively of the total.

The number of newly added phone users amounted to 65.76 million, bringing the total number of users to 978.702 million at the end of October.

Of the total, mobile phone users increased 79.959 million from a year earlier to about 627 million, while the fixed-line users decreased 14.199 million year-on-year to 351 million as of the end of October.

In October alone, 1.507 million of newly added phone users were recorded, with mobile phone users increasing by 3.219 million, while fixed-line users down by 1.712 million.