Though China boasted the highest global number of new mobile phone subscribers in the first quarter, the country was still below the world's average in terms of mobile penetration, according to an Ericsson AB finding.

The Mobility Report, released by Sweden-based Ericsson (AB is a company in the group) in early June, pointed out that China added about 30 million mobile subscribers in the quarter to March 31, accounting for 25 percent of the world's total net additions.

There are about 1.15 billion mobile phones in China.

However, China's mobile penetration figure was 84 percent, which lagged behind most countries and regions. Global mobile penetration was at 90 percent in the first quarter of 2013, with total subscriptions standing at 6.4 billion.

Central & eastern Europe posted the highest mobile penetration rate of 132 percent in the period, the report said. Africa and India were the only regions that presented lower figures than China.

There is a large difference between the number of subscriptions and subscribers. This is due to the fact that many subscribers have several subscriptions. Consequently, subscription penetration can easily reach above 100 percent.

The actual number of global mobile subscribers was about 4.5 billion, the report estimated.