China’s telecommunication sector grows steadily in August

BEIJING — China's telecommunication industry has grown steadily with the number of cell phone users growing rapidly in the first eight months of 2018, official data showed.

The accumulated business revenue of the industry reached 888.1 billion yuan (about $129.3 billion) in the January-August period, up 3.3 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In breakdown, revenue of mobile communication of three major telecommunication companies, namely, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom, amounted to 628.7 billion yuan, accounting for 70.8 percent of the country's telecommunication revenue.

Revenue of fixed-line communication saw a small increase in its contribution to the total revenue, accounting for 29.2 percent, up 1.6 percentage points from a year earlier.

The number of cell phone users continued to rise rapidly in the first eight months of 2018, growing 11.3 percent to 1.54 billion by the end of August, said the MITT.

The expansion came after three Chinese major telecommunication operators rolled out new packages allowing customers to access the internet at much lower costs.

Data from the MITT also showed that more Chinese cell phone users tended to use 3G and 4G services. The number climbed to 1.28 billion, accounting for 83.5 percent of China's cell phone users.

In addition, Chinese fixed broadband internet subscribers preferred internet with high speed, with nearly 60 percent subscribers' internet speed reaching over 100Mbps, said the MITT.