China now has 1.22 billion mobile phone users

Beijing: The number of cellphone users in China reached 1.22 billion till October end, the Chinese government has revealed. According to the Chinese ministry of industry and information technology (MIIT), there were 1.11 billion users in the country in 2012, Xinhua reported. Among them, 67.19 percent or 817 million mobile phone users are connected to the Internet and 34.5 percent of them are 3G users. In contrast, fixed telephone lines are decreasing, as it was found the number of fixed line users shrank by 8.82 million in the first 10 months to 269 million at the end of October. [caption id=“attachment_1192911” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational Image. Reuters[/caption] Overall, the mobile phone users account for 81.9 percent of phone users and fixed line users 18.1 percent. The provinces of Guangdong, Henan and Sichuan reported the most mobile phone user growth in the first 10 month. IANS