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'SAMENA Daily' - News

China Mobile adds 9m 4G customers in one month

China Mobile on Monday released its latest subscriber figures and the data showed that it added upwards of 9 million 4G customers in a single month.

The world's biggest mobile operator by subscribers added a net 9.13 million 4G users in August, some 2.64 million more than its net additions the previous month.

The telco, which launched its TD-LTE offering in December now has a 4G customer base of 29.57 million.

Many of China Mobile's 4G additions appear to be existing customers migrating to the new service. Overall, the telco added a net 2.46 million new customers in August, taking its total customer base to 769 million.

Some of the company's growth in recent months has come at the expense of its rivals. But while one competitor appears to be bouncing back, another is slipping behind.

China Telecom also published new statistics on Monday that showed it has reversed five consecutive months of customer declines. The market's smallest player added just over half a million customers in August, taking its total base to 180.56 million; it does not break out 4G customers.

However, since the start of the year it has lost more than 5 million customers, which it attributes to China Mobile's LTE launch.

China Telecom and rival China Unicom finally got the green light from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to trial hybrid TD-LTE/FDD LTE networks in July, bringing them closer to launching fully-competitive LTE services for smartphone users.

"China Telecom started to roll out 4G handset service in 16 cities in late July and further expanded to 24 more cities in early September," China Telecom said in a statement. It pledged to "continue to expand the width and depth of LTE network coverage in major cities."

But while the trial 4G network permit appears to have benefitted China Telecom, Unicom's numbers tell a slightly different story.

China Unicom added 635,000 customers in August, fewer than the 888,000 it claimed in July and 1.71 million in June.

Net additions for its 3G and 4G services came in at 1.26 million, down from 2.51 million in July and more than 3 million a month earlier.

In total, China Unicom has 296.53 million customers.

As such, as of the end of August there are 1.27 billion mobile customers in China.



Source: http://www.totaltele.com/view.aspx?ID=487576

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