China Mobile heats up fixed-line broadband market with record number of subscribers in June
Wireless network operator sets new industry milestone by adding 3.18 million customers in a month
China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless network operator by subscribers, delivered in June a five-year high in the monthly number of new fixed-line broadband subscribers for the domestic telecommunications industry.
Operating data released by China Mobile on Wednesday showed that it signed up 3.189 million fixed-line broadband subscribers last month, surpassing China Telecom’s 590,000 and China Unicom’s 249,000 net increase in the same period.
That helped China Mobile boost its total fixed-line broadband users to 65.8 million as of June 30 and a 26 per cent share of a market segment dominated by China Telecom, which had 118 million subscribers in the same period.
Jefferies equity analyst Elaine Lai said in a report that the new fixed-line broadband subscribers added by China Mobile in June was the highest monthly number recorded in the domestic telecommunications sector in the past five years.
“The last highest [monthly] net addition was 1.45 million by China Telecom, back in March 2011,” Lai said.
The new industry milestone for China Mobile followed its 31.88 billion yuan (HK$36.91 billion) purchase last year of the fixed-line network assets of China TieTong Telecommunications Corp, formerly known as China Railway Communications.