BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The number of mobile phone subscribers in China hit a record of 400 million at present, a source with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said on Thursday.

    Statistics show that the number reached 398 million at the end of January with an increase of 5.37 million in the month, twice the increase of fixed-line users.

    The average increase every month has been between 3 million and 4 million in the past 12 months, said the ministry source.

    China's mobile subscribers have gained a stronger momentum of growth since they outnumbered fixed-line phone subscribers in October 2003.

    Along with the increase in mobile phone subscribers, the short message volume climbed 65.7 percent year-on-year in the first month to 33.72 billion.

    The ministry source also said in January that this year China's total post and telecommunications revenue reached 55.34 billion yuan, up 10.8 percent over the same period last year.

    China imported its first mobile phone telecom facilities in 1987, and it took a decade for the number of subscribers to reach 10 million. Four years later, the country had the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world. Enditem