China Nears 200 Million Broadband Subscribers (But the Mobile Web is Still Way Bigger)

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released the latest official numbers for broadband penetration in the country. According to the Ministry, China now has more than 180 million broadband subscribers, and that number continues to grow.

While the growth of broadband internet is impressive, it’s worth pointing out that in some respects, China has actually skipped broadband and moved straight on to mobile. The country already has more than 1.1 billion mobile subscribers, and well over 200 million of them are already on 3G. In fact, the country broke 200 million 3G subscribers last October and by the latest counts, has probably already cracked 250 million. And with the number of smartphone users also climbing steadily and already over 300 million by some counts, it’s clearly the mobile market that’s going to be making the biggest waves for the immediate future.

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