China's mobile phone users have sent 176.06 billion short messages from the beginning of this year through October, according to figures released by the Ministry of Information Industry Thursday.

The year end figure is expected to exceed 220 billion, an increase of about 50 billion year-on-year, according to the ministry.

If each text message costs 0.1 yuan (about 1.2 US cents), the business had generated a total of 17.6 billion yuan (about 2.12 billion US dollars) by the end of October this year, said a ministry official.

"Mobile phone short messages have been the pillar for value-added transactions in the mobile industry," said the official, who declined to be named. "And various new businesses and applications are emerging in succession."

Platforms like WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), JAVA and BREW (binary runtime environment for wireless) enable Internet-connected phone users to customize their cell phones by downloading applications, email, music and mobile games.

China had 315.1 million mobile phone users as of the end of August 2004.

Source: Xinhua