Marbridge Daily

China Telcos Announce August 2011 Subscriber Totals

Marbridge Consulting, 9/20/11

China's three main telecom operators have announced their subscriber totals for August 2011.

August saw the net addition of 10.73 mln new mobile subscribers. China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) added 5.78 mln new mobile subscribers, pushing the operator's total mobile user base to 627.63 mln, of which a total of 40.32 mln subscribers used China Mobile's TD-SCDMA terminals during the month. China Mobile added 2.72 mln new TD-SCDMA subscribers in August.

China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) added 2.36 mln new mobile subscribers, bringing its total to 186.1 mln. Of the new mobile subs added, 0.32 mln were GSM subscribers, bringing China Unicom's total GSM user base to 158.23 mln, and 2.05 mln were WCDMA 3G subscribers, pushing the company's total WCDMA user base to 27.87 mln subscribers.

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) added 2.59 mln CDMA subs, taking its total to 113.53 mln, of which 25.61 mln were CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers. China Telecom added 2.05 mln new CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers in August.

Of the combined total of 93.8 mln 3G subs, China Mobile holds 43%, China Unicom 29.7%, and China Telecom 27.2%.

Of total new mobile subs added in August, China Mobile took 53.83%, dropping its share of China's total mobile user base to 67.69%. China Unicom's share of the total mobile user base rose slightly to 20.07%, while China Telecom's share increased for the 32nd straight month, rising from 12.1% at the end of July to 12.24% at the end of August.

China Telecom lost 480,000 fixed-line subscribers, reducing its total to 171.45 mln, and China Unicom lost 268,000 fixed-line subscribers, dropping its total to 94.7 mln.

China Telecom added 1.07 mln new broadband subscribers to reach 72.48 mln, and China Unicom added 767,000 new broadband subs to reach 53.76 mln.

Keywords: national statistics market size growth rate fixed-line subscribers China Telecom China Mobile China Unicom telecom mobile subscribers 3G broadband subscribers CDMA GSM CHL TD-SCDMA WCDMA 0728.HK 0762.HK 0941.HK 600050.SH CHA CHU CDMA2000 EV-DO market share