3G users surge to 152m in China

BEIJING - China's 3G users reached 152 million by the end of March, almost a 10-fold increase from two years ago, according to figures released Thursday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Meanwhile, the nation's mobile online users exceed 370 million, more than 70 percent of the country's total Internet users, the MIIT vice minister Shang Bing said.

Businesses such as e-commerce, mobile payment and microblogging are booming, and the information and telecommunication industries are driving social and economic development, said Shang.

As of March this year, China had 1.3 billion phone users including 1.01 billion mobile phone users, as well as 158 million broadband Internet customers, MIIT statistics show.

Shang promised further efforts to expand the use and accelerate the speed of broadband Internet.