China's communications firms added a combined 9.827 million mobile customers in January, ending the month with 735.787 million mobile users, according to figures from the operators. China Mobile led in subscriber adds in January as the company added 5.115 million new customers to bring its customer base to 527.398 million. Of the total, 3.898 million are 3G customers. China Telecom signed up 3.05 million mobile subscribers to bring its total to 59.14 million. The carrier shed 1.90 million fixed-line users and ended the month with a total of 186.66 million local access lines in service. However, the number of broadband customers rose by 790,000 to hit a total of 54.25 million. China Unicom ended January with a total of 149.249 million mobile customers, which comprises 145.654 million 2G subscribers and 3.595 million 3G customers. Unicom added 1.662 million new subscribers in the month. However, the company lost 300,000 fixed-line customers to bring its total to 102.522 million, but gained 965,000 broadband customers reaching a total of 39.515 million.

source:telecompaper