BEIJING -- The number of people subscribing to third-generation mobile phone services in China increased by 74.22 million in the first nine months of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said Thursday.

There were 1.37 billion phone users in the country by the end of September, Zhang Feng, director of telecommunication development department at MIIT, told a press conference.

The number of Internet broadband users rose 20.57 million to 550 million in the first three quarters. The Internet penetration rate reached 41.1 percent at the end of September, according to Zhang.

Main business revenues for China's telecommunication industry jumped 9.2 percent year on year to hit 801 billion yuan ($127.14 billion) in the first nine months.

Third-quarter revenues also rose 9.2 percent year on year, down 0.6 percentage points from the same period last year, Zhang added.