Mobile subscribers with China United Telecommunications Corp (China Unicom) exceeded the 100-million mark by Wednesday, said the company, stressing it would now focus more on servicing current subscribers instead of solely pursuing an increase in users.

"It (the acquisition of 100 million subscribers) is much more a new start for us rather than simply a breakthrough," said Wang Jianzhou, chairman and president of China Unicom, the second-largest mobile operator in China.

The company said yesterday its GSM (global system for mobile communications) users reached 77.47 million, while the number of CDMA (code division multiple access) subscribers stood at 22.56 million by May 5.

The numbers will make China Unicom the second-largest CDMA operator and the third-largest GSM operator in the world.

GSM and CDMA are two different standards of mobile communication standards, but the former was mainly initiated by European companies, while the latter is popular in the United States and South Korea.

CDMA 1X, a standard of the 2.5-generation mobile communications, also boasts a fast Internet connection speed.

However, Shang Bing, vice-president of China Unicom, admitted that the growth of new subscribers slowed down a little over last year.

The company added an average of about 1 million new subscribers on its CDMA network every month in 2003, but the monthly average in the past four months was less than 900,000.

Wang Zhanqiang, an analyst with Guotai Jun'an Securities, believes that was mainly due to fewer subsidies given to subscribers, which reduced the company's financial burdens and was actually positive for China Unicom.

Shang also pointed out that the increase in new subscribers will cease to be the only priority for his company and China Unicom will focus on both tapping the potential of existing users and developing new users.

He said China Unicom will launch its GSM1X service in July, which allows GSM and CDMA1X users to alternate between the two systems.

China Unicom has decided to order GSM1X mobile phones from South Korean firms Samsung and LG, as well as the US company Motorola, to supply the market.

Shang believes there will be high demand for the service as many GSM subscribers also want to enjoy a fast Internet connection and a rich variety of applications, and CDMA users can also avoid the interconnection problem when roaming in some GSM-dominated markets.

He said the price of GSM1X phones will be about the same as GSM phones on the market, so price won't be an obstacle for the promotion of the service.

"It is a good move for China Unicom. It will improve the lower coverage of CDMA network and attract GSM users to the CDMA network," said Wang Zhanqiang.

Lu Guoying, a senior telecom analyst with the domestic market research house CCID Consulting, also said the launch of GSM1X will help China Unicom finally unite the GSM and CDMA networks and save on the cost of maintaining two separate networks.

The other major project for China Unicom will be to finish the construction of the third phase of its CDMA network in June or July, according to Wang Jianzhou.

By then, its CDMA1X network will have a capacity of 70 million lines and cover all cities and 97 percent of towns in China.

(China Daily May 11, 2004)