To achieve a greater flexibility when transmitting data according to a hybrid ARQ method, preferably when used in a mobile radio system, a channel-coded bit stream is divided into at lest one first bit stream and one second bit stream whereby these parallel bit streams are each subjected to a separate bit rate matching, and the resulting bits of the individual bit streams are subsequently combined with one another once again in order to transmit in a data packet or in a repeat data packet that is requested on the receiver side.