China's legions of mobile phone subscribers swarmed to a new high of 443 million at the end of September, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Information Industry.

The figures suggest that as many as one in every three Chinese citizens now has a mobile, but in reality some people have more than one handset.

In the first nine months of the year, China's mobile phone subscribers increased by 49.75 million. That is a whopping 5.53 million new subscribers per month.

Fixed-line subscriptions are growing much more slowly, 2.10 million per month in the first three quarters. The country now has 369 million fixed-line phone subscribers.

For every 100 Chinese, there are now 33.9 mobile phones and 28.3 fixed-line phones.

The telecommunications sector posted revenue of 479.93 billion yuan (US$60.75 billion s) in the first nine months of the year, up 11.3 percent year on year.

Robust growth in the mobile phone industry is due to an expanding rural market and the increasing number of people who have more than one mobile phone, a ministry spokesperson said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2006)