Qingdao's telecommunication system developed rapidly. The total post and telecom business turnover was 7.38 billion yuan in 2004, an increase of 27.7 percent over the previous year. The network information technology was further improved and popularized. At the end of the year, there were 664,500 Internet subscribers in Qingdao, an increase of 67.5 percent year-on-year, with a total Internet usage time of 780 million minutes. The telecom system was further expanded. The telephone exchange capacity reached 2,997,500 phones, an increase of 24.2 percent; there were 2,049,000 local phone subscribers and 3,763,200 mobile phone users in Qingdao.