The number of phone subscribers in China reached a record of 692 million at the end of May, according to latest figures released by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) Tuesday in Beijing.

This is a net rise of 44.778 million in the first five months this year over the end of last year, said MII in its press release.

The number of mobile phone subscribers rose 23.724 million in the first five months, making the cell phone users totaling 358 millions at the end of May, said the ministry.

Though facing heated competition brought by mobile communications, the number of fixed-line subscribers rose 21.05 million over the end of last year to 333 million at the end of May.

The ministry said that in the first five months of the year, China's total revenue of post and telecommunications reached 256.11 billion yuan, up 10.5 percent over the same period last year.

Postal revenue was 23.29 billion yuan, a rise of 6.3 percent year-on-year, and the telecom revenue hit 232.81 billion yuan, up 10.9 percent year-on-year.

Source: Xinhua , June 22, 2005