Figures recently released by the Ministry of Information Industry show an increased growth in China's mobile-phone subscribers for July compared to previous months, with 4.99 million new subscribers signing-up, higher than June's 4.42 million increase.

With mobile-phone pentration in urban areas increasing and continued non-traditional discount phone services on offer, numbers overall are still lower than last year, with the median monthly increase for 2003 standing so far at 5.4 million users – notably less than 2002's 5.7 million. China's total number of fixed-line telephone subscribers reached 240.8 million in July, which would indicate an increase this month of 3.14 million.