China Unicom mobile subscribers decline in November while its two rivals saw gains

China Unicom on December 20 revealed business data for last month, of which mobile subscribers fell by 856,000, the second consecutive month of decline.

The decline in November narrowed as its mobile billing users dropped by 2.61 million in October.

From January to November this year, China Unicom's mobile billing users have a cumulative net increase of 6.227 million, reaching 321 million. However, the number of subscribers of China Mobile and China Telecom Mobile has maintained a positive monthly increase.

China Unicom stated in the announcement that in the face of speeding up and reducing fees, market saturation, fierce market competition, and the gradual fading of 4G traffic dividends, the company adheres to differentiated and Internet-based operations, strictly controls user development costs, strengthens integrated operations, and strives to avoid simple price wars.

In November, China Mobile had a net increase of 2.955 million mobile subscribers, reaching a total of 946 million; China Mobile 4G subscribers had a net increase of 3.967 million, accumulating a total of 753 million. The number of wired broadband users increased by 694,000, reaching a total of 187 million.

In that month, China Telecom's mobile subscribers increased by a net increase of 1.86 million, with a total of 333.9 million mobile subscribers. Among them, China Telecom's 4G subscribers increased by 1.93 million in the month, and 4G subscribers totaled 280 million.

In terms of wired broadband services, China Telecom's wired broadband subscribers increased by 500,000 in the month, and the cumulative number of wired broadband subscribers was 153.75 million. At the same time, as of the end of November 2019, the total number of wired broadband subscribers of China Telecom and China Telecom's parent company was 180 million.

In terms of fixed telephone business, the number of fixed-line telephone subscribers of China Telecom decreased by 520,000 in the month, and the total number of fixed-line telephone subscribers was 111 million.