Editorial Summary

China's handset production increased 7.8 percent year-on-year to 198.102 million units in April, according to Ministry of Industry and Information (MII) statistics released on Wednesday. China added 8.88 million mobile phone users in April to reach 583.5 million handset users by the end of the month. China lost 1.02 million fixed-line users to reach 360 million in the same period. Handset users sent out 229 billion SMS messages in April for a year-on-year increase of 25.4 percent. China's mobile phone penetration rate has reached 41.6 percent.

The nation's telecom industry revenue increased 9.9 percent year-on-year to reach RMB261.95 billion in April. Revenue from China's mobile and fixed-line value-added services grew 23 percent year-on-year to RMB 20 billion in 2007, reports cww.net.cn quoting Ministry of Industry and Information (MII) telecom management bureau vice director Li Jie.

Revenue from China's electronics and IT manufacturing industry grew 19.8 percent year-on-year to RMB 1.466 trillion in the first four months of 2008. China's electronic components industry contributed RMB 485.68 billion to the total.