China's 3G subscriptions top 18m

Subscriptions to China's third generation mobile technology (3G) service increased by nearly 5 million in the first quarter of this year to exceed 18 million, according to the latest data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

By the end of March, China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, had 42.5 percent, the lion's share of the country's 3G market. The other two smaller rivals, China Telecom and China Unicom, took 30.8 percent and 26.7 percent.

So far, China has adopted three different 3G standards for commercial use: a home-developed standard, TD-SCDMA, developed and operated by China Mobile, and two international standards, WCDMA and CDMA2000.

China Mobile's TD-SCDMA networks now cover 238 cities, China Unicom's WCDMA cover 335 cities, and China Telecom's CDMA2000 covers 342 cities, 2,055 counties and more than 6,000 towns, according to the ministry.

Meanwhile, China's phone subscriptions rose by 24 million in the first quarter to top 1 billion, which means every 100 people own 81.6 phones. Mobile subscriptions jumped by more than 29 million to hit 780 million, and that translates into every 100 people having 58.4 handsets.

Fee levels set by the country's telecom carriers saw an average drop of 13.5 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.

From January to March, subscriptions to broadband Internet access increased by 6.1 million to exceed 100 million, with penetration reaching 8.2 percent, it said.

Source: China Daily