China Mobile’s has been on a growth streak for some time. IDG News reports the country’s largest operator--and indeed the world’s--China Mobile grew by 68.1 million new subscribers last year--about three times the number of T-Mobile USA subscribers, and about 14 million more than Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel. And subs are growing strong, rising 22.6 percent year-over-year, boosted by growth in rural areas. As of the end of January, China Mobile now has a total of 376.38 million mobile users. Even more interesting: content usage is booming. Last year, China Mobile subscribers sent 502.7 billion SMS messages, up 42.3 percent from 2006. The number of subscribers to its mobile music service rose to 66.88 million, growing nearly four-fold from its 2006 base of 16.13 million. Paid for subscriptions to its mobile news service climbed to 23.55 million, adding 18.05 million users, while its instant messaging software for PCs and mobiles Fetion ended 2007 with 73.26 million users, adding 67 million from last year. China Mobile said it will start 3G services in time for this year’s Olympics being held in Beijing. It also plans to invest 127.2 billion renminbi ($18.04 billion) into the company.

In separate, but related news, more than 30 percent of mobile phone subscribers in China will read books and newspapers on their handsets in the next five years, reports Xinhua News, citing a joint study from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Shanghai Jiaotong University entitled China’s Cultural Industry 2008. The report said by the same time, it expected 90 percent of China’s newspapers to have a digital edition and noted that digital publishing had “enormous potential.” In 2007, it found that the number of people accessing the internet through their mobiles totalled 45 million, over double the figure from the year before. It also forecast that sales from digital content services and ads would hit 5 billion yuan ($710 million) by 2013.

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