China's three main telecom operators have announced their subscriber totals for March 2012.

March saw the net addition of 12.82 mln new mobile subscribers. China Mobile added 5.8 mln new mobile subscribers, pushing the operator's total mobile user base to 667.2 mln, of which a total of 59.56 mln subscribers used China Mobile's TD-SCDMA terminals during the month. China Mobile added 2.97 mln new TD-SCDMA subscribers in March.

China Unicom added 3.52 mln new mobile subscribers during the month, bringing its total to 209.49 mln. Of the new mobile subs added, approximately 550,000 were GSM subscribers, bringing China Unicom's total GSM user base to 160.63 mln, while 2.97 mln were WCDMA 3G subscribers, pushing the company's total WCDMA user base to 48.86 mln subscribers.

China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) added 3.5 mln CDMA subs, taking its total to 135.83 mln, of which 43.55 mln were CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers. China Telecom added 2.4 mln new CDMA2000 EV-DO subscribers in March.

Of China's combined total of 151.97 mln 3G subs, China Mobile holds 39.19%, China Unicom 32.15%, and China Telecom 28.66%. Of total new mobile subs added in March, China Mobile took 45.25%, dropping its share of China's total mobile user base to 65.9%. China Unicom's share of the total mobile user base increased for the 14th straight month, rising from 20.6% at the end of February to 20.69% at the end of March, while China Telecom's share increased for the 39th straight month, rising from 13.24% at the end of February to 13.42% at the end of March.

China Telecom lost 320,000 fixed-line subs, reducing its total to 168.71 mln, and China Unicom lost 55,000 fixed-line subs, dropping its total to 92.35 mln.

China Telecom added 1.25 mln new broadband subscribers to reach 80.4 mln, and China Unicom added 933,000 new broadband subs to reach 58.296 mln.

Source:marbridgeconsulting