In January 2008 the number of Chinese mobile phone subscribers reached over 555 million an increase of 18.9% for the year, and nearly double the population of the US.

The statistics provided by China’s Ministry of Information Industry, if credible, added that mobile users sent 54.64 billion SMS in January alone and mobile users now account for 41.6% of the country’s population.

Though Chinese customers pay approximately 80% less than US users their monthly investment still equates to around 7% of their annual salary and with the American population at 300 million, it’s not hard to see why manufacturer’s are keeping an even stare on this emerging market.