Marbridge Daily

China Telcos Announce December 2010 Subscriber Totals

Marbridge Consulting, 1/20/11

China's three main telecom operators have announced their subscriber totals for December 2010.

December saw the net addition of 8.78 mln new mobile subscribers. China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) added 4.38 mln new mobile subscribers, pushing the operator's total mobile user base to 584.02 mln, of which a total of 20.7 mln subscribers used China Mobile's TD-SCDMA terminals during the month.

China Unicom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) added 0.62 mln new GSM subscribers, bringing its total GSM user base to 153.37 mln, and added 1.28 mln subscribers to its WCDMA 3G network, for a total of 14.06 mln WCDMA users.

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) added 2.5 mln CDMA subs, taking its total to 90.52 mln, of which 12.29 mln were CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers. While China Telecom did not break out what percentage of its 2.5 mln new subscribers in December were 3G subscribers, it added an average of 1.05 mln new 3G subscribers per month in Q4 2010 (according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China Telecom added 850,000 3G subscribers in October, meaning an average of over 1.14 mln new 3G subs per month in each November and December).

Of the three operators' cumulative 47.05 mln 3G subs (which represents only 80% of the 60 mln figure the MIIT had previously set as the 2010 year-end target), China Mobile holds 44%, China Unicom 30%, and China Telecom 26%. Of total new mobile subs added in December, China Mobile took 49.87%, dropping its share of China's total mobile user base to 69.36%. China Unicom, in contrast, increased its share of China's total mobile user base for the first time since October 2008, to 19.89%. China Telecom's share of the total installed mobile user base increased for the 24th straight month, hitting 10.75%.

China Telecom lost 1.22 mln fixed-line subs, reducing its total to 175.05 mln, while China Unicom dropped 1.91 mln fixed-line subs, reducing its total to 96.64 mln.

China Telecom added 0.79 mln new broadband subscribers to reach 63.48 mln, and China Unicom added 0.29 mln new broadband subs to reach 47.22 mln.

Keywords: national statistics China Telecom China Mobile China Unicom target telecom MIIT 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