China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced on Wednesday that the overall price level of China's telecom fees in 2009 decreased by 9.2 percent year on year.

Over the last year, China adjusted charges of fixed-line services, phased out the price difference of text messaging among different carriers, and cut long-distance mobile phone call prices, which lessened consumers' telecom expenses by over 8 billion yuan a year.

The telecom industry realized non-voice service revenue of 313.55 billion yuan in 2009, up 8.8 percent on year, accounting for 37.2 percent of the industry's total service revenue, with the proportion climbing 1.7 percent from 2008.

Besides this, the telecom industry's business volume last year topped 2,568.06 billion yuan, rising 14.4 percent year on year, and business revenue was up 4.1 percent to 870.73 billion yuan. The industry added fixed-asset investments of 372.5 billion yuan, up 26.1 percent year on year. The total number of China's phone users increased to 1.06 billion, and the penetration rate was 79.9 percent.

source:iStockAnalyst