China's telecom sector reports steady performance in Jan-Nov

BEIJING - China's telecommunications industry reported steady performance in the first 11 months of the year, official data showed.

The combined revenue of the telecom industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan ($171.4 billion), up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In breakdown, revenue from fixed-line communications of the three major telecom companies -- China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- amounted to 383.4 billion yuan during the 11 months, up 9.4 percent year on year.

Their revenue from mobile communications reached 820.5 billion yuan, contributing 68.2 percent of the sector's total revenue, said the MIIT.

The number of cellphone users climbed 2.7 percent year on year to about 1.6 billion by the end of last month, with 4G subscribers hitting 1.28 billion and making up 79.7 percent of mobile phone users.

The data also showed that the number of fixed broadband Internet users in China grew steadily during the period, with 84 percent of subscribers' Internet speed reaching over 100 Mbps.