Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that licensed motor vehicles in Macao totalled 250,246 as at end-September 2023, up by 0.8% year-on-year; light automobiles (115,046) and heavy motorcycles (108,943) rose by 1.2% and 1.5% respectively. New registration of motor vehicles in September dropped by 20.8% year-on-year to 941 (239 were electric vehicles). There were 459 light automobiles (129 of them were electric) and 412 heavy motorcycles (62 of them were electric), representing decreases of 15.2% and 33.1% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2023, new registration of motor vehicles grew by 19.7% year-on-year to 8,885. Number of traffic accidents in September climbed by 18.1% year-on-year to 1,166, with 2 persons killed and 416 persons injured. In the first three quarters of 2023, there were 9,914 traffic accidents, which resulted in 7 deaths and 3,463 injuries.
Cross-border vehicular traffic in September hiked by 57.6% year-on-year to 636,553 trips, of which light automobile trips (595,534) surged by 61.3%. Meanwhile, gross weight of containerized cargo by land in September rose by 19.2% year-on-year to 4,008 tonnes; cargo passing through the Checkpoint of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (3,756 tonnes) took up 93.7% of the total. In the first three quarters of 2023, cross-border vehicular traffic (5,230,437 trips) soared by 98.9% year-on-year, while gross weight of containerized cargo by land (26,818 tonnes) slid by 31.0%.
Gross weight of port containerized cargo dropped by 6.0% year-on-year to 15,352 tonnes in September; cargo being handled at the Ká-Hó Harbour (8,530 tonnes) fell by 21.4% whereas thatbeing shippedthrough the Inner Harbour (6,822 tonnes) increased by 24.5%. In the first three quarters of 2023, gross weight of port containerized cargo rose by 26.7% year-on-year to 143,591 tonnes.
Arriving and departing commercial flights totalled 3,437 trips in September, a sharp rise of 337.3% year-on-year. Gross weight of air cargo expanded by 66.7% year-on-year to 5,902 tonnes in September, of which gross weight of inward cargo (459 tonnes) and outward cargo (5,271 tonnes) grew by 34.6% and 76.5% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2023, number of arriving and departing commercial flights jumped by 275.7% year-on-year to 26,863 trips, while gross weight of air cargo (39,947 tonnes) went up by 3.1%.
As at the end of September, there were 88,760 fixed-line telephone subscribers, down by 6.1% year-on-year. Number of mobile phone subscribers climbed by 13.1% year-on-year to 1,354,371; postpaid subscribers (984,078) and prepaid SIM card subscribers (370,293) rose by 7.4% and 32.0% respectively. Internet subscribers totalled 717,805 as at end-September, an increase of 3.5% year-on-year. The duration of internet usage in September went down by 5.5% year-on-year to 137 million hours, whereas the total duration of internet usage in the first three quarters of 2023 grew by 1.5% to 1.28 billion hours.