China's telecom sector profits up 5.7% in January

Mar. 10, 2009 (China Knowledge) - China's telecom sector posted a year-on-year growth of 5.7% in profits in January 2009, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the official Xinhua News reported.

Figures from MIIT showed that the total income from the telecom services hit RMB 63 billion in January, up 5.7% year on year, and the total telecom business volume rose 9.4% to RMB 190.30 billion, compared from a year earlier.

In addition, the number of fixed-line users in the country decreased by 1.02 million to 33.98 million in January, while the number of mobile phone users increased by 8.49 million to 64.97 million, said MIIT.

In the meantime, the number of broadband users grew by 1.2 million to 84.6 million, while the number of dial-up network users dropped by 2.53 million to 11.84 million.

The volume of fixed-line local calls shrank 17.1% year on year, while that of mobile phone calls expanded 15.9% year, according to the statistics from MIIT.