The telco aims to launch VoLTE in 300 cities this year
SHANGHAI – China Mobile expects to reach 500 million LTE subscribers by the end of this year, according to the operator’s president and CEO Li Yue, speaking during a keynote presentation at this week’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai event.
The executive said LTE subscribers will represent 60% of the telco’s overall subscriber base by the end of the year. Li also said China Mobile expects to add 10,000 LTE base stations across China this year, taking its total to 1.4 million.
China Mobile is currently the world’s largest mobile operator with nearly 840 million subscribers. The telco has 409 million LTE subscribers, accounting for nearly half of its overall subscriber base.
Li also highlighted LTE services represented 86% of China Mobile’s overall data traffic during the first five months of the year. By the end of 2016, LTE is expected to represent 90% of the telco’s overall traffic.
China Mobile also announced plans to launch commercial voice-over-LTE services in more than 300 cities across China this year. Li said the carrier is looking to sell more than 1 million VoLTE smartphones this year.
China ended 2015 with 1 billion connections, which accounted for 10% of the world’s overall connection base. Li forecasted total connections in the Chinese market will reach 5 billion by 2020.
In February, the Chinese operator launched its 5G Joint Innovation Center project with partners including Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm, Datang, Intel, Keysight, Beijing Shougang Automation Information Technology, Haier and Hisense. China Mobile said the center will conduct work on applications and products with industry partners in such areas as basic communications, “internet of things,” telematics, industrial internet, cloud robotics and virtual/augmented reality.
