The latest statistics from China's Ministry of Information Industry shows that by the end of July 2007, there had been more than 880 million telephone users in China, including 372 million fixed-line phone users and 508 million mobile phone users.

The statistics show that thanks to the exploration into the rural market and the adoption of the one-way charging, the mobile phone user population had been expanded rapidly. Up to the end of July, there had been an increase of 47.482 million mobile phone users compared with that of the end of last year, increasing by 6.783 million monthly.

In addition, the total number of fixed-line phone users also increased by 4.958 million compared with last year end with a monthly increase of 708,000 new users.

At the end of July 2007, about 38.3% of the total Chinese population had a mobile phone and about 28.4% of the users had fixed-line phones.