The number of China's 3G users is expected to hit 170 million in 2010, the China Daily reported on Monday, citing Yang Hua, secretary-general of TD-SCDMA Alliance as saying.

The Chinese government issued 3G licenses to the country's top three telecom operators in January 2009. China Mobile Ltd<0941><CHL>, the country's largest telecom operator, was authorized to offer 3G services based on the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard. China Telecom Corp Ltd<0728><CHA> runs 3G services based the U.S.-developed CDMA2000 standard across the country, while China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd<600050><0762><CHU> has launched 3G services based on Europe's WCDMA standards.

The three telecom operators have invested a total of RMB 160.9 billion in the 3G network in the past year, and built 325,000 base stations during the period, according to figures released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The state-owned Chinese telecom operators tend to be more generous in making investments, and investment in upgrading and expanding the network would hit RMB 280 billion over the next two years, said the report.

By the end of last November, China had 13.07 million 3G service users and the number is expected to exceed 15 million at the end of 2009, said MIIT.

source:chinaknowledge