China's communications firms added a combined 8.89 million mobile customers in December, ending 2009 with 723.86 million mobile users, according to figures from the operators. China Unicom ended December with a total of 145.49 million mobile customers, which comprises 144.85 million 2G subscribers and 2.74 million 3G customers. Unicom added 1.56 million new subscribers in the month. However, the company shed 2.11 million fixed-line customers to bring its total to 102.82 million, but gained 219,000 broadband customers reaching a total of 38.55 million. China Mobile ended 2009 with 522.28 million mobile customers, of which 3.41 million are 3G customers, up from 2.97 million in November. The operator added 4.24 million new customers in December. China Telecom signed up 3.10 million mobile subscribers to bring its total to 56.09 million. The carrier lost a record 2.53 million fixed-line users and ended the year with a total of 188.56 million local access lines in service. However, the number of broadband customers rose by 620,000 to hit a total of 53.46 million.

source:telecompaper