China Mobile today said its 4G LTE subscriber base rose 59 percent to 143.08 million in the first quarter of 2015 from 90.06 million in Q4 2014.
3G subscriber base of China Mobile fell 4.5 percent to 234.76 million from 245.75 million during the period, said China Mobile announcing its Q1 2015 financial result.
China Mobile said ARPU increased to 59 yuan from 58 yuan.
The telecom service provider admitted that OTT business impacted its communications services. SMS of China Mobile fell 4.5 percent to 146.2 billion from 156.1 billion. Voice usage dipped 1.3 percent.
Mobile data traffic of China Mobile increased 158 percent to 490.3 billion MB from 408.2 billion.
China Mobile said net additional 4G customers for the first quarter of 2015 exceeded 53 million.
Operating revenue grew 3.9 percent to RMB 160.9 billion.
“There is a high demand for resources from 4G network construction and optimization as well as business development, retention of existing customers and mobile Internet development deployment and therefore, capital expenditure and cost input continued to remain at a high level,” said China Mobile.
The Beijing-based company said sales rose 3.9 percent to 160.9 billion yuan. Net income of China Mobile dropped 5.6 percent to 23.8 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) in the first quarter.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
