Marbridge Daily

China Telcos Announce October 2012 Subscriber Totals

Marbridge Consulting, 11/20/12

China's three main telecom operators have announced their subscriber totals for October 2012.

October saw the net addition of 11.25 mln new mobile subscribers. China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) added 4.96 mln new mobile subscribers, pushing the operator's total mobile user base to 703.47 mln, of which a total of 79.31 mln subscribers used China Mobile's TD-SCDMA terminals during the month. China Mobile added 3.71 mln new TD-SCDMA subscribers in October.

China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) added 3.39 mln new mobile subscribers during the month, bringing its total to 232.88 mln. Of the new mobile subs added, approximately 190,000 were GSM subscribers, bringing China Unicom's total GSM user base to 162.81 mln, 3.20 mln users were WCDMA 3G subscribers, pushing the company's total WCDMA user base to 70.07 mln subscribers.

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) added 2.90 mln CDMA subs, taking its total to 155.52 mln, of which 62.74 mln were CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers. China Telecom added 3.02 mln new CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers in October.

Of the combined total of 212.12 mln 3G subs, China Mobile holds 37.39%, China Unicom 33.03%, and China Telecom 29.58%. Of total new mobile subs added in October, China Mobile took 44.07%, dropping its share of China's total mobile user base to 64.43%. China Unicom's share of the total mobile user base increased for the 21st straight month, rising from 21.24% at the end of September to 21.33% at the end of October, while China Telecom's share increased for the 46th straight month, rising from 14.12% at the end of September to 14.24% at the end of October.

China Telecom lost 1.05 mln fixed-line subs, reducing its total to 164.91 mln, and China Unicom lost 25,000 fixed-line subs, decreasing its total to 92.60 mln.

China Telecom added 1.02 mln new broadband subscribers to reach 87.98 mln, and China Unicom gained 677,000 new broadband subs to reach 63.33 mln.

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