In the first quarter this year, the volume of SMS reached 67.21 billion, increasing 39% over the same period last year, averaging 750 million SMS per day.

In today's 37th World Telecommunication Day commemorative ceremony, the responsible spokesman from the Ministry of Information Industry mentioned that China's telecom industry has achieved hyper-growth.

Currently, China's telephone statistics has reached 674 million, including 325 million fixed line installations and 349 million cellular phones, both occupying first place in the world.

Internet users reached 98.8 million, ranked second in the world.

Various intercom services, including SMS, have seen explosive growth in China.

In the first quarter, more than thirty new telecom services were introduced. Broadband Internet users increased 3.48 million in the first three months of this year, reaching 28.33 million; IP phone conversations totaled 30.074 billion minutes, increasing 17%.

Value-added services such as ringtones, multimedia messages, cell phone games all grew rapidly, and have high hopes of succeeding SMS as the next fastest growing telecom services.

(Chinanews May 19, 2005)