The number of China's mobile phone subscribers reached more than 420 million at the end of May, reported the Ministry of Information Industry on Wednesday.

Statistics show that the number increased by 27.39 million in five months, more than twice the increase of fixed-line users. There are 57 million more mobile subscribers than fixed-line users.

The average monthly increase in mobile users has been between 3 million and 4 million in the past year, said the ministry.

China's mobile subscribers have been growing steadily since they outnumbered fixed-line phone subscribers in October 2003.

Along with the increase in mobile phone subscribers, the volume of text messages climbed 46.3 percent from the first five months of the previous year to 167.95 billion.

The ministry also said that in the January to May period this year China's total post and telecommunications revenue reached 287.82 billion yuan (around 35.97 US billion dollars), up 11.4 percent on the previous year.

China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987 and it took a decade for the number of subscribers to reach 10 million. Four years later, the country had the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in the world.