China's Mobile Phone Users +5.4 Million In Oct; Total 195.83 Million

BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- The number of mobile phone subscribers in China increased by 5.4 million in the month of October, according to official figures published by the Xinhua news agency Friday, for an unusually fast monthly growth

China has the world's largest number of mobile phone users, with the user population totaling 195.83 million at the end of October, compared with 190.39 million at the end of September. In 2001, China's net monthly increase in mobile phone users averaged about 5 million

Those subscribers are shared between China Mobile Communications Corp., the parent of China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd. (NYSE:CHL - News) , and China United Telecommunications Corp., the parent of China Unicom Ltd. . China Mobile is generally estimated to have about 70% of the market.

The Xinhua report also said, citing the Ministry of Information Industry, that fixed-line telephone users totaled 209 million at end-October. That is an increase of 2 million from end-September's figure of 207 million

Most fixed-line telephone users are customers of either China Telecom Group, the parent of China Telecom Corp. , or its smaller rival, China Netcom Group.