China Mobile 'on target' for 300 million 4G users by the end of the year

China Mobile, the world's largest wireless network operator, is set to reach 300 million 4G subscribers by the end of this year as domestic adoption picked up again last month following a slowdown in April.

Reaching that milestone would further burnish China Mobile's credentials as the telecommunications industry's biggest 4G services provider, more than a year after the company began the massive roll-out of a network built on the indigenously developed 4G standard called time-division long-term evolution (TD-LTE).

Analysts said the trend towards adopting 4G in China will remain robust throughout this year, driven by rapid network deployments across the country by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

"We expect migration to speed up again when new [4G mobile tariff] plans with lower data rates are announced [by China Mobile],"  Bernstein Research senior analyst Chris Lane said in a report. "China Mobile's 4G slump in April was transitory and we expect they will exceed 300 million 4G customers for the end of the year."

China Mobile reported on Monday that it had 816.3 million total subscribers as of May 31. That included 170.3 million on its 4G network and 222.7 million on 3G.

The company added 17.2 million new 4G subscribers last month, compared with 10.1 million in April. The net 4G addition in April was considered by analysts as a significant decrease when compared with the record 19.7 million the operator signed up in March.