Beijing, China, 29 Dec – The number of telephone customers in China reached 830 million at the end of 2006 and will be 900 million in 2007, the Ministry of Information said in Beijing Thursday.

Fixed and mobile telephone users rose by 19.6 and 66.6 million, respectively.

The number of telephone customers has risen sharply in China over the last few years.

It took two years for the number of users to rise from 100 million to 200 million, between 1998 and 2000, but only 14 months to rise from 700 million to 800 million between 2005 and 2006. (macauhub)