China Mobile 4G network set to be biggest in world

China Mobile Corp's fourth-generation telecom network has accumulated 6.5 million users since its launch six months ago, company executives said on Wednesday.

The nation's No 1 telecommunications carrier by subscriber number also shared its ambitious 5G blueprint, saying more than 100 billion devices will be connected to the super-fast mobile network in the future.

About 12 million 4G devices are using China Mobile's service, according to Li Yue, president and chief executive officer of China Mobile. The company aims to sell 100 million 4G devices by the end of this year.

"Although our 4G customers currently account for less than 1 percent of the total subscribers that the company serves, we are confident of lifting the user base to 50 million by year's end," Li said.

China Mobile said it hopes to make its 4G network the world's largest in the coming months.

The Beijing-based company pledged to add about 180,000 4G base stations before 2015, bringing the total to a half-million and covering 340 cities across the country.

China Mobile's investment in 4G will hit 240 billion yuan ($39 billion) this year, the company said.

Wider network coverage will help sell 100 million 4G devices in 2014, according to a company statement.

Xi Guohua, chairman of China Mobile, said lower hardware prices and service charges should speed expansion of its newest network in the second half of the year.

The company introduced a number of internally developed 4G smartphones to the market in a bid to increase its 4G user base. Xi told local smartphone vendors at the Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai that the telecom giant will not pursue profit in hardware sales.

Liu Lihua, vice-minister of industry and information technology, backed China Mobile's cheap 4G approach on Wednesday. "The government supports carriers' initiatives of bringing down 4G service charges," Liu said. "Such moves will help the nation boost information consumption, an important driver for long-term economic growth." China announced in mid-May that the carriers, all State-owned enterprises, could determine service fees on their own rather than following a government-set reference range.

"High service fees have hindered 4G development in China, so the carrier has to lower the charges in order to lure more users. It is especially critical as the 4G service just kicked off in the country," said Milly Xiang, chief telecom analyst at research firm IDC China.

The 5G technology will have a connection speed similar to fiber-optic Internet, the fastest fixed-line connection in use today, said Xi.

Xi did not disclose the possible launch date of 5G service. Analysts said they believe its commercial use in China is years - if not a decade - away as the previous technology only kicked off in the country this year.

Local research on next-generation telecom technologies is likely to receive government support.

630M MOBILE SUBSCRIBERS, AND COUNTING

The Asia-Pacific region now accounts for half of the world's mobile subscribers and will remain one of the world's fastest-growing mobile markets through 2020 and beyond, according to a new report.

There were 1.7 billion unique mobile subscribers in the region at the end of 2013, accounting for half of the 3.4 billion global subscriber base, according to the GSM Association.

The number of subscribers in the region is expected to grow by 5.5 percent a year until reaching 2.4 billion in 2020.

Total mobile connections in Asia Pacific stood at 3.4 billion at the end of 2013 and are forecast to increase to 4.8 billion by 2020. China, the world's largest mobile market, was home to 630 million unique mobile subscribers at the end of 2013.

There were 1.13 billion active mobile connections in China at the end of 2013, meaning that millions of Chinese subscribers use more than one SIM cards or device; there were 1.79 SIM cards per unique subscriber in China at the end of 2013.

The study also found that some 500 million Chinese citizens had subscribed to mobile Internet services at the end of 2013. China's remaining 130 million subscribers used their mobile connections only for placing voice calls and sending text messages.

It is estimated that the total number of Chinese Internet users stood at just over 600 million in 2013, meaning that more than 80 percent access the Internet via mobile.

Over two-thirds (69 percent) of Chinese mobile Internet subscribers accessed Internet services via mobile broadband networks (3G/4G), with the rest using 2G, according to the research.

It is forecast there will be almost 900 million 4G mobile connections in the country by the end of 2020, up from around 100 million in 2014.