CANBERRA, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Australia's population grew by 1.6 percent in 2018 on the back of a record number of births, according to new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday.
The figures revealed that Australia's population was 25.2 million as of the end of December 2018, up from 24.8 million at the end of 2017.
The number of births in Australia in 2018 hit an all-time high of 314,900, surpassing the previous record of 312,200 set in 2012.
Of the births 161,900 were male and 153,000 female.
There were also 1,600 fewer deaths in 2018 than in 2017, resulting in a natural population increase of 156,300, compared with 144,100 in 2017.
However, net overseas migration (NOM) remained the biggest driver of Australia's population growth, accounting for 61.4 percent.
NOM for 2018 was 248,400, with 530,100 people arriving in the country to live on a permanent basis while only about 281,600 departed for overseas.
Australia's population hit 25 million in August 2018. The ABS estimated at the time that Australia's population was increasing by one person every 83 seconds.
"Australia's population has increased more than sixfold since 1901 when it was 3.8 million," Anthony Grubb, the bureau's Director of Demography, said in August last year.
Victoria remained the nation's fastest-growing state in 2018 with an annual population growth of 2.2 percent while the population of the Northern Territory declined by 0.4 percent.
