Unicom, Netcom Announce September 2008 Subscriber Totals
Marbridge Consulting, 10/17/08
China Unciom (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) and China Netcom have announced their subscriber totals for September 2008.
China Unicom's GSM business enjoyed a relatively strong month, adding 1.27 mln new subs to reach 130.7 mln. Its CDMA business, suffering from both lack of marketing and a possible loss of consumer confidence in the lead-up to handover to China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK), dropped 626,000 subs, bringing its total to 41.7 mln. China Telecom, however, has now begun both aggressive network expansion and marketing of CDMA, so future months should see a return to positive growth.
China Netcom suffered a net loss of approximately 470,000 fixed-line subs in September, bringing its total to 107.3 mln. Broken down by sub-category, the total was comprised of 24.8 mln PHS subscribers (down 560,000 since June 30), 6.8 public phone lines (flat for the quarter), 65 mln residential lines (down 648,000 since June 30), and 10.7 mln business lines (up 29,000 since June 30).
Broadband access remained a bright spot for Netcom, which added 607,000 new broadband subscribers in September to bring its total to roughly 24.9 mln.
Keywords: statistics September 2008 0728.HK 0762.HK 600050.SH broadband access broadband subscribers CDMA CHA China Netcom China Telecom China Unicom CHU GSM PHS subscribers public phone telecom fixed-line subscribers wireless
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