China vs India: Mobile cellular subscriptions

China
1.87 billion
in 2024
India
1.15 billion
in 2024
China rank
1st
India rank
2nd

Mobile cellular subscriptions over time

  • China
  • India
0500.0M1.0B1.5B2.0B196019922024

How they compare

China currently reports 1.87 billion against 1.15 billion in India, a difference of 718.65 million.

That makes China's figure about 1.6 times India's.

The two have swapped places 1 time across 53 shared years of data; in 1960 it was India ahead.

Globally, China ranks 1st and India ranks 2nd of 213 countries.

Individual pages

About this data

Indicator
Mobile cellular subscriptions
Source
World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Licence
CC BY 4.0 (World Bank Open Data)
Coverage
260 places, 13,039 data points, 1960–2025
Last refreshed

Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions are subscriptions to a public mobile telephone service that provide access to the PSTN using cellular technology. The indicator includes (and is split into) the number of postpaid subscriptions, and the number of active prepaid accounts (i.e. that have been used during the last three months). The indicator applies to all mobile cellular subscriptions that offer voice communications. It excludes subscriptions via data cards or USB modems, subscriptions to public mobile data services, private trunked mobile radio, telepoint, radio paging and telemetry services.