THE number of Chinese fixed and mobile telephone subscribers has hit 840 million and is expected to top 1 billion by the end of 2009, an industry official said Friday.

The number of phone subscribers is growing by 100 million every year and 60 percent of them are mobile subscribers, said Wei Jun, an official in charge of planning at the Ministry of Information Industry.

The number of mobile users is expected to reach 520 million this year, up from 460 million in 2006.

Wei said the country has been working to extend telecom services into underdeveloped rural areas and that telephones are now available in nearly 99 percent of all Chinese villages. The figure is expected to hit 100 percent this year.

By 2010, the information industry will hopefully record 10 trillion yuan (US$1.3 trillion) in gross income and will make up 10 percent of China’s gross domestic product, Wei told a conference on China’s semi-conductor market that opened in Shanghai on Wednesday.

He said by 2010, more than 200 million Chinese will be using the Internet, about 15 percent of the country’s population of 1.3 billion.

China has the world’s second-largest population of Internet users after the United States, with 137 million people online, according to the ministry.(Xinhua)