A short but interesting article from the Xinhua news service reported on the amount of the money being generated by Chinese "new media" businesses. Citing a report by the China Media Research Center, an analysis house, the articles say that new media generated 118 billion yuan (about US$15 billion) in 2006. The article is a little vague about what that figure represents exactly, but I'm going to take a stab and say top-line revenue. It's also a touch vague about what constitutes a "new media" business.

But it's not the figure itself that is interesting. It's the growth rate (56 percent) and, especially, the ratio: 88.8 billion of that 118 billion--or about 75 percent--generated by mobile services such as SMS and wireless value-added services.

A little reminder that there are (generously) 140 million Internet users in China and about 450 million mobile phone users.

For comparison purposes, China Mobile's total 2006 revenue (including subscription revenue, etc.) was 295 billion yuan, generated by about 300 million customers. Not much smaller than total media industry revenue if the figures from CDDC are correct.