China subscriber base: 390m+

China subscriber base: 390m+

China has the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world. With a record 388m mobile subscribers at the end of November, China could close 2005 with about 393m mobile users. For several years, China has added between 4.5m and 5m new users per month, in spite of increasing pessimistic forecasts. It is a fact that growth is still there, driven by unpredicted such strong growth of the middle class income. Mobile teledensity is at about 29.5 mobile phones for every 100 Chinese, but relatively close to western standard in urban areas. Chinese have also discovered SMS in the few past years, and more than 300bn text messages were sent in 2005.