Mobile usage up in China, China Mobile has 140 mln subscribers

Subscriber growth for China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd, the world's biggest mobile carrier by subscribers, picked up in November but slowed at its chief rival, China Unicom Ltd, according to new data. China Mobile added 2.2 million subscribers to its network in November, up from 2.1 million in October and 2.06 million in September, according to data released on Friday. Its total subscriber number stood at 139.3 million at the end of November.

Unicom's 1.88 million new subscribers number in November was down from 2.1 million additions in October, and was flat compared with September, according to data released late Thursday. Within its total, Unicom added 1.1 million users to its CDMA service, bringing the total for the highly promoted system to 15.75 million. Unicom also operates an older system based on the GSM standard popular in Europe.