Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that licensed motor vehicles in Macao totalled 246,028 as at end-September 2021, up by 1.7% year-on-year. Light automobiles (112,506) and heavy motorcycles (104,821) increased by 1.9% and 3.2% year-on-year respectively. Meanwhile, new registration of motor vehicles in September declined by 37.8% year-on-year to 727, with that of heavy motorcycles (461) and light automobiles (247) dropping by 28.5% and 50.3% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2021, new registration of motor vehicles went up by 5.6% year-on-year to 9,294. Number of traffic accidents in September rose by 20.4% year-on-year to 1,205, with 390 persons injured. In the first three quarters of 2021, traffic accidents grew by 37.4% year-on-year to 9,737, which resulted in 1 death and 3,334 injuries.
Cross-border vehicular traffic in September rose by 11.7% year-on-year to 326,207 trips, of which light automobile trips (293,500) grew by 11.4%. Meanwhile, gross weight of containerized cargo by land went up by 11.9% year-on-year to 3,366 tonnes, with 98.3% passing through the Checkpoint of Macao Port Administration Area of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. In the first three quarters of 2021, cross-border vehicular traffic increased by more than 100.0% year-on-year to 3,094,108 trips, and gross weight of containerized cargo by land increased by 14.4% to 21,694 tonnes.
Gross weight of port containerized cargo hiked by 55.4% year-on-year to 17,190 tonnes in September; cargo being handled at the Inner Harbour (11,332 tonnes) and the Ká-Hó Harbour (5,857 tonnes) expanded by 22.0% and 229.9% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2021, gross weight of port containerized cargo rose by 36.7% year-on-year to 113,859 tonnes.
Arriving and departing commercial flights totalled 1,062 trips in September, an uplift of 75.2% year-on-year. Air cargo surged by 54.3% year-on-year to 5,097 tonnes, of which gross weight of inward cargo (475 tonnes) and outward cargo (4,605 tonnes) swelled by 51.3% and 59.3% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2021, number of arriving and departing commercial flights increased by 5.3% year-on-year to 11,063 trips, along with a growth of 54.0% in air cargo (32,412 tonnes).
As at the end of September, there were 101,656 fixed-line telephone subscribers, down by 7.2% year-on-year. Number of mobile phone subscribers decreased by 25.1% year-on-year to 1,248,491; prepaid SIM card subscribers (389,594) slid by 53.5%, whereas postpaid subscribers (858,897) rose by 3.6%. In September, internet subscribers increased by 6.1% year-on-year to 662,058. Total duration of internet usage in September went up by 2.1% year-on-year to 143 million hours, while the duration in the first three quarters of 2021 inched up by 0.5% to 1.24 billion hours.