Marbridge Daily

Telecom Operators Announce December 2009 Subscriber Totals

Marbridge Consulting, 1/20/10

China's three main telecom operators have announced their subscriber totals for December 2009.

December saw the net addition of approximately 8.9 mln new mobile subscribers. China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) added almost 4.24 mln new mobile subscribers, pushing the operator's total mobile user base to nearly 522.3 mln, of which a total of nearly 3.41 mln subscribers used China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network services during the month. China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) added 640,000 new GSM subs, bringing its total to over 144.8 mln, and added 920,000 subscribers to its WCDMA 3G network, for a total of over 2.74 mln. China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) added 3.1 mln CDMA subs, taking its total to nearly 56.1 mln.

Of total new mobile subs added in December, China Mobile finally dropped below the 50% mark to take 48%, bringing its share of China's total mobile user base to 71.94%.

China Telecom lost almost 2.5 mln fixed-line subs, reducing its total to approximately 188.6 mln, while China Unicom lost over 2.11 mln fixed-line subs dropping its total to 102.8 mln.

China Telecom and Unicom enjoyed positive growth in broadband, with China Telecom adding 620,000 new broadband subs to reach approximately 53.5 mln, and China Unicom adding 219,000 to reach over 38.6 mln.

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