China’s No. 3 operator China Telecom witnessed its wireless subscriber growth slow during the first nine months of this year due to increased competition from rivals.
The operator said it lost more than 4 million wireless customers through the first nine months of this year, with all coming from its legacy 2G operations as its 3G operations managed to attract 9.4 million new subscribers. Both numbers pale in comparison to the previous year in which China Telecom added more than 20.5 million total wireless customers through the first nine months and 27.4 million 3G customers.
China Telecom ended the latest quarter with 181.6 million customers on its network, with its 3G network supporting 112.5 million subscribers.
China Telecom claimed the drop in customer growth was due to “the increasing market competition driven by the launch of LTE services and strengthened marketing promotion by the peers.” The carrier is just beginning to rollout its LTE service in select markets, with the service so far attracting 1.33 million customers during the third quarter.
Larger rival China Mobile began rolling out LTE services earlier this year, and reported earlier this month that it added 8.5 million new customers to its network during the third quarter. However, its LTE-based service managed to attract more than 27 million subscribers during Q3, boosted by recent rate plan changes.
China Telecom said it would be more aggressive moving forward in rolling out its LTE service. The carrier did report a 24.4% year-over-year increase in total capital expenditures through the first nine months of the year as well as a 12.7% increase in expenses related to employee compensation.
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