China's Ministry of Information Industry reports that as of the end of September, the number of mobile phone subscribers in China reached 377 million.

This figure is an increase of 43.1 million over the end of 2004. At the end of September, there were 29.1 mobile phones for every one hundred Chinese.

Statistics from the ministry show the total number of telephone users in China, including both mobile phone users and fixed-line users, reached 723 million by the end of September.

Along with the increase of mobile phone subscribers, short messages (SMS) also witnessed a sharp rise of 40.2% year-on-year, to more than 218.5 billion messages in the first nine months of 2005.