In third world country people go in debt and deprive themselves from many amenities in order to have a cell phone a show it off. I think cell phone is the least indicator of a middle class. How about cars? How about nice and comfortable homes and apartments? How about PC and laptops? How about home internet and cable or dish? How about all the other electronics home devices and appliances? How about decent cloths? How about good food and the ability to go out a lot to eat in restaurants? How about decent healthcare? Those are real indictor of middle class not a cell phone! And based on your account, less us assume $ 100 month is what the average Chinese make, and if cell phone cost them $ 30 a month then that is 30% of their monthly salary, imagine how much less they can afford to other stuff with the remaining 70 dollars.
Exactly - that means they have 450 million middle class guys in their own standards.
BTW - the service fees of the cellphones are NOT cheap. It's about 9 RMB per minute with long distance, or about $1 per minute. So certainly they have to make above $100 per month to afford that.
My point is that in China the middleclass is much bigger than in India, because they have a manufacturing base. Without it, IT work is limited to a a couple of million people, as what the author of the article says.