Pacific Epoch reports that in Beijing there are 97 mobile phones per 100 people. That seems like a pretty big amount to me, anybody knows how this compares to Europe or the US?
They also report that for every landline number in Beijing, there are now 1.5 mobile numbers (9.5 million landlines to 14.7 million mobile numbers). But those figures are actually not comparable, because it is often very difficult or impossible to get extra landlines. Most businesses in China therefore use extension numbers for its staff, leading to an actual number of landlines that must be much higher than this figure.
The problem with the Chinese way of counting mobile lines is that they only add every number that is given out. They never deduct the numbers that are not being used anymore, so in due time, there can be more mobile phones than there are Chinese. At least, according to this way of counting.
The numbers are even more crazy….
According to http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=284642
42Mil. users have been added in the year 2005……. That is nearly 3 times the population of Holland 🙂
@Fons: that could be right, I have collected 4 different numbers over the years, that might all still work and are likely all counted in such a report. Maybe this will change once the identification rules will be implemented (show your idenitity card when buying a new number), at least they will get rid of all the old numbers.
@Marcel: the link you posted leads to an article about search engines (frustrated Google users), I guess you pasted the wrong link?
I don’t think so… phone number is limited because of the way the database is being built long time ago. Then they did not forsee the ‘coming’ of the mobile world etc. etc. The telephony numbers is LIMITED. It is not something that can be produced at will. In 1997, I believed, Hong Kong became the first country in the world to increase their phone number from 10 digits (e.g 000 – 333 5555) to 11 digits (000 – 3333 5555). To change something in the numbering system, it has to take the phone systems of the whole world into considerations. Therefore phone numbers that have been disconnected would be reused very quickly. Especially in country such as China, S. Korea, HK, and some S. American countries.