China could be world's largest ATM market

BEIJING, March 12 (UPI) -- China could become the world's largest market for automatic teller machines by 2007, a spokesman for a U.S.-maker of the machines said.

Mark Hurd, chief executive officer of NCR Corp., said there are 50,000 ATMs in China, compared with 324,000 in the United States.

In China every 1 million users share 42 ATMs while 1,250 ATMs are available to every 1 million users across the United States, Hurd said.

With the world average of 204 ATMs for 1 million people, China will be a big market in coming years, People's Daily reported.