China Mobile eyes 5G as subscriber base crosses 900 million

China Mobile Communications Corp, China's major telecom carrier, announced on Wednesday that its user base reached 901.92 million in May, increasing by 2.26 million from the previous month, according to a report by Chinese news portal Jiemian.

While the number of China Mobile's 4G users expanded slower in April, it reported a normal growth rate in May, reaching 671.82 million, up by 2.5 million.

As the industry leader, China Mobile now has no advantage in growth rate compared to its domestic rivals China Unicom and China Telecom.

The number of China Unicom's 4G users surpassed 200 million not long ago, with an increase of 25.46 million so far this year, more than the number of 22.32 million new 4G users of China Mobile this year, the report said.

As of April, the number of China Telecom's users grew by 20.91 million to 271 million, of which 206 million were 4G users.

As China Unicom and China Telecom are beating China Mobile in adding new 4G users, China Mobile has accelerated its moves in 5G to maintain its leading position.

On June 14 in Spain, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP, a global organization that oversees cellular standards, agreed on the specification for a standalone 5G network, which means the industry has entered the new home stretch.

In addition, the first multivendor 5G call to meet 3GPP's standalone 5G NR specifications was completed on June 15 in Beijing by telecom equipment maker Ericsson, Intel and China Mobile Research Institute.

"It is an important milestone for the productization and commercialization of 5G standards and will lay a solid foundation for China Mobile in its large-scale 5G trial, enabling the success of the global 5G industry," Huang Yuhong, deputy general manager of China Mobile Research Institute, said.

According to the 5G standardization process set by 3GPP, a complete 5G standard that fully satisfies all of the requirements of International Telecommunications Union is expected to be completed in December, 2019 and 5G will be fully commercialized by 2020.