<div><p>LONDON (Reuters) - Publishing group Pearson and phone maker Nokia have formed a joint venture to deliver English-language learning materials to mobile phone users in China, the two companies said on Monday.</p><p>China, which has more English learners than in any other country, is playing an increasingly important role for UK-based Pearson, which owns the world's largest education publishing business as well as the Financial Times and Penguin books.</p><p>Last year, it bought Wall Street English for $145 million in cash, giving it a leading position in China's English-language teaching market.</p><p>The new joint venture, named Beijing Mobiledu Technologies, builds on a service that Nokia launched in 2007, providing content from a variety of publishers, which so far has about 20 million subscribers and 1.5 million active users each month.</p><p>Customers can access the content through an application preloaded on new Nokia handsets, or by visiting the service's mobile website.</p><p>Mobile phones are crucial for access to information in China, which has at least 720 million mobile subscribers, double the amount of Internet users it has.</p><p>Nokia, the world's biggest handset maker, sold almost 18 million phones in China last quarter, 36 percent more than a year earlier.</p><p>(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Erica Billingham)</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=68231352&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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