Photo/Shetuwang

May 23 (NBD) -- China's three major wireless carriers unveiled their April operational performance on Monday. It is noteworthy that China Mobile saw its first-ever drop in the number of 4G subscribers.

In April, while China Telecom posted a total of 206.12 million 4G users, a net addition of 5.86 million users compared to March, China Unicom also registered a rise in the number of subscribers, gaining 4.062 million to reach 198 million in total.

However, statistics from China Mobile show that the carrier lost 2.427 million 4G users last month, down 0.36% to 669 million subscribers.

This is the first time that the big player reported a decline in 4G user number.

In 2015 and 2016, China Mobile had the largest growth in the number of 4G users. The new subscribers added every month on average numbered 18.5 million in 2015 and 18.58 million in 2016. In December of 2016, the company gained a recorded 25.205 million new 4G users among the three giants.

Some analyzed that China Mobile's loss of subscribers is caused by the shrinking development space of the 4G market and the basic completion of users' migration from 2G or 3G to 4G.

An industry observer pointed out that as there is little room to push up further the total number of 4G subscribers, the competition in China's 4G market is more like a zero-sum game, in which win-win situation can hardly be achieved and the players have to grab consumers from their rivals.

China's total number of 4G subscribers has amounted to 1.05 billion now, according to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in April. 

To scramble for more users, big carriers chose to launch various new plans such as unlimited data plans or discount packages. For example, China Unicom partnered with tech titans including Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu to issue custom data plans.

The cooperation with Tencent and Alibaba was so successful that it contributed to about 70 percent of China Unicom's newly gained market shares within half a year.

Though China Mobile encountered a minor setback in 4G market, it had a positive performance in the wired broadband business. 

The number of China Mobile's wired broadband subscribers hit 127 million in April, a rise of 3.178 million over the previous month, while China Telecom added 1 million subscribers in the same month, registering 138 million subscribers in total in the niche sector. 

Industry insider Fu Liang predicted that China Mobile is likely to catch up with or surpass China Telecom in terms of the number of broadband subscribers in August or September of this year.

China Telecom aims to gain 25 percent more market shares in the broadband domain in 2018 so as to maintain its leadership.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn