Back in February we covered the increasing number of mobile handsets available in China. Now, Shanghai Daily reports that mobile handset ownership in China has topped 409 million, or 30 handsets for every 100 people, a rise of more than 5 million new handsets every month.

Short messages sent in the first quarter reached 98.82 billion, up 47 percent from a year ago.

Compared with mobile phone users, the country had more than 358 million fixed-line users before April, 8.34 million more than last year, it said. For every 100 people in China, 27 have fixed-line telephones.

The postal and telecom industries in China reported a combined revenue of 169.26 billion yuan (US$21.16 billion) in the first quarter, up 11.8 percent from a year ago.