Hong Kong - Hong Kong people sent 14 times as much mobile data in January than they did in the same month two years ago, according to figures released Tuesday. The rise in the sending of mobile data from phones and hand-held computers also represented a four-fold increase on the figure from January 2008, the territory's telecommunications authority said.

People in the hi-tech city of 7 million are among the world's keenest users of mobile technology to transmit files, images and SMS messages.

Figures from the authority show that there were 10.5 million mobile phone subscriptions in Hong Kong in January, equivalent to 1.5 subscriptions for every person in the former British colony.

Every mobile phone customer sent an average of 41 SMS messages in January while the total number of SMS messages sent was 421.5 million, a 22 per cent year-on-year rise.

An authority spokesman called the growth in mobile data usage "remarkable" and said: "Hong Kong has matured as a leading wireless city in the region." (dpa)