The number of mobile phone subscribers in China exceeded 850 million last year, according to a Chinese government report. Net additions reached a record high of more than 100 million in 2010 alone, according to the report from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The growth boosted the country mobile penetration rate to around 60 percent of the country’s estimated population of 1.4 billion for 2010.

During the January-November period in 2010, 103 million users were newly subscribed to the country’s mobile phone services. The figure is estimated to have surpassed 110 million as of the end of December.

The report showed the number of fixed-line subscribers dropped 153.9 million to 298 million during the period.

In the first 11 months of last year, the Chinese telecom industry’s revenue was estimated to be 819.03 billion yuan (US$123.56 billion), up 6.6 percent on-year. Sales from mobile telecom business made up 70 percent of the industry’s total business revenue, while fixed-line business accounted for about 30 percent.