China has 1.06b mobile phone accounts

China had 1.06 billion mobile phone accounts as of July, of which 183.8 million subscribed to 3G network services, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

From January to July, the country added 75.8 million mobile phone users. Seven out of every 10 newly added cell phone users were 3G subscribers.

The number of fixed-line telephone users dropped by 1.91 million in the same period.

China Mobile Ltd, the nation's biggest telecom carrier, had 688 million mobile subscribers by July, of which 69 million were 3G users. China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd had 60.6 million 3G users as of July, with a total mobile user base of 222 million. China Telecom Corp Ltd said it had 146.9 million mobile phone subscribers and 53.8 million 3G users.