China's largest mobile carrier, China Mobile, announced that its 4G subscriber base reached almost 510 million in November 2016. This reportedly represents a staggering 30% of the total number of 4G subscribers around the world. However, China Mobile added just over 12.5 million TD-LTE subscribers in November, compared with a net increase of 16.6 million 4G users in October, which represents slow growth for the company.
China Mobile's growth still far outweighs its competitors, including China Unicom, which added 5 million 4G customers in November, taking its 4G LTE subscriber base to 99 million. China Mobile's other rival, China Telecom, added 4.3 million 4G subscribers in November, bringing its total 4G user base to 117.3 million. The three mobile operators combined represent over 720 million new 4G subscribers in November.
China Mobile is currently involved with an IoT (Internet of Things) development project with Vodafone, Ericsson and Lenovo. The group recently signed a letter of intent. According to reports, China Mobile plans to connect its IoT connection management platform with Ericsson's DCP platform and Vodafone's IoT platform, which will provide its enterprise customers with a unified global network access, portal experience and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Through this, China Mobile wants to push forward its overseas market expansion and improve the company's service capabilities. What's more, China Mobile's partnership with Lenovo will kick-start its plans to launch a range of notebooks with built-in 4G-LTE modules which will provide users with China Mobile's high-speed 4G mobile internet services.
