According to new figures from China‘s Ministry of Information Industry (MII), there were 416.64 million subscribers to mobile communication services in China at the end of April, an increase of 6.95 million from the prior month.

At the same time, there were 360.94 million subscribers to fixed-line telecommunication networks.

China‘s mobile subscribers surpassed fixed-line subscribers in October 2003, and in the past year the average monthly increase in mobile users has been between 3 million and 4 million. Mobile subscriptions increased by 23.216 million in the first four months of 2006, more than twice the increase in fixed-line users. There are currently 56 million more mobile subscribers than fixed-line users.

By comparison, Informa Telecoms & Media figures also show that China has by far the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world, followed by the US and Russia.

Not all the Chinese mobile traffic is talk. MII said mobile phone subscribers sent 33.4 billion short messages in April, or an average of nearly three a day per user.

MII also reported that there are more broadband than dial-up Internet users in China, 42 million to 33 million respectively.