According to authorities, the total number of Chinese phone users continued to develop rapidly during the first five months of the year, exceeding 1.1 billion by the end of last month (May 2010).

The data by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed that the country (China) added around 40.8 million phone users during the last five months (January-May 2010), bringing the countrywide total to over 1.1 billion in a country with a 1.3 billion population.

During the period, fixed-line telephone users declined around 7.8 million to 306 million whereas mobile phone users increased 48.5 million to 796 million.

The number of Chinese broad-band Internet users also climbed aroundy 9.8 million to 113 million by the end of May.

The telecom business has registered around 1.23 trillion yuan ($181 billion) of business income during the five-month period, up 21.6% year on year. (With Inputs from Agencies)