30pct Chinese netizens use cell phones for web surfing

New Delhi, October 15 : China has about 84.5 million people who use their cellular phones to surf the Internet, nearly 30 per cent of the total number of netizens in the country, according to an industry expert.

Yang Zemin, director of the Telecom Research Institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that 68.7 million new cell phone users were registered in the first eight months, bringing the population of mobile users to about 616 million.

He reckoned that the population of Internet users had touched the 275 million mark by the end of September, 85 per cent of whom were broadband users.

He said that the number of fixed-line users was declining, reports the China Daily.

Yang revealed that, through August, the population of fixed-line users stood at 354 million, down 11 million from the 2007 figure.

According to him, the total telecom industry revenue reached 79.1 billion dollars through August, up 8.5 per cent from a year earlier.

ANI