Transport, postal and telecom services 2018

Transportation

In 2018, total freight traffic reached 51.5 billion tons, up by 7.1 percent over 2017, and the freight flows were 20.55 trillion ton-kilometers, up by 4.1 percent. The volume of freight handled throughout the year by ports above a designated size totaled 13.3 billion tons, up by 2.7 percent from the previous year. Of this total, freight for foreign trade was 4.2 billion tons, up by 2.0 percent. Container shipping at ports above a designated size reached 249.55 million standard containers, up by 5.2 percent.

The total passenger traffic in 2018 reached 17.9 billion people, down by 3.1 percent from 2017, and the passenger flows were 3,421.3 billion person-kilometers, up by 4.3 percent.

The total number of motor vehicles for civilian use reached 240.28 million (including 9.06 million tri-wheel motor vehicles and low-speed trucks) by the end of 2018, up 10.5 percent, of which privately-owned vehicles numbered 207.30 million, up 10.9 percent. The total number of cars for civilian use stood at 134.51 million, up 10.4 percent, of which privately-owned cars numbered 125.89 million, up 10.3 percent.

Post service

The turnover of post services totaled 1.23 trillion yuan, up by 26.4 percent from 2017. The number of mail deliveries was 2.68 billion; that of parcel deliveries was 20 million; and that of express deliveries was 50.71 billion with a revenue reaching 603.8 billion yuan.

Telecommunication service

The turnover of telecommunication services totaled 6.56 trillion yuan, up by 137.9 percent from 2017. The newly-increased capacity of the mobile phone switchboard was 172.67 million lines with the total capacity reaching 2,594.53 million lines. By the end of 2018, there were 1,748.35 million phone subscribers in China, of which 1,566.10 million were mobile phone users. Mobile phone coverage rose to 112.2 sets per 100 people.

The number of fixed broadband internet users reached 407.38 million, an increase of 58.84 million from the previous year. Of this total, fixed fiber-optic broadband internet users amounted to 368.33 million, an increase of 74.40 million; and mobile broadband users numbered 1,305.65 million, an increase of 174.13 million.

The mobile internet traffic in 2018 was 71.1 billion gigabytes, up by 189.1 percent from the previous year. Software revenue of the software and IT services industry totaled 6.31 trillion yuan in 2018, up by 14.2 percent from 2017 on a comparable basis.