China's phone subscribers rose to 1.13 billion by the end of August, said Yang Xueshan, vice minister of industry and information technology, Saturday.

Yang made the remarks at a forum in Shanghai, but he did not give the separate figures on fix-line and mobile phone users.

But according to the ministry, the country's phone users stood at 1.11 billion by the end of June, with 805 million mobile phone users and 305 fix-line phone users.

China's Internet users reached 420 million by the end of June, with the Internet penetration rate hitting 31.8 percent, said Yang.

The sales revenue of China's electronics and information products manufacturers exceeded 2.8 trillion yuan in the first half of the year, Yang said.

The software industry generated a revenue of 723.1 billion yuan in the January-July period, up 29 percent year-on-year, the official added.

(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2010)