Telecom service provider China Mobile on Monday announced its mobile data usage on 2G, 3G and 4G networks reached 724.7 billion MB during January – September 2014 against 426.5 billion MB in January — June 2014.

China Mobile said mobile data traffic for the first three quarters of 2014 increased 98.6 percent compared to the same period of last year, which constituted the major driver of revenue growth.

For comparison, Indian telecom operator Idea Cellular today said its data usage (both 2G and 3G) during Q2 of fiscal 2015 was 39,428 million MB against 17,452 million MB in Q2 fiscal 2014. Idea Cellular does not have 4G operations in India.

The mobile data growth of China Mobile, which competes with other state-run China Telecom and China Unicom, was supported by 799 million mobile subscribers including 244.46 million 3G and 40.95 million users.

China Mobile’s 3G subscribers rose to 244.46 million in January – September 2014 from 238.52 million in January – June 2014. On the other hand, 4G user base of China Mobile grew to 40.95 million from 23.41 million.

ARPU of China Mobile decreased to 63 yuan from 64 yuan. China Mobile has also witnessed 0.3 percent drop in voice usage to 456 minutes per month per user from 460 minutes per month per user.

Despite OTT challenges, China Mobile usage SMS usage increased to 455.3 billion from 305.8 billion messages.

China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua said: “The Group accelerated the promotion of its strategic transformation. The demand for resources from 4G network construction and business development, retention of existing customers, and mobile Internet development deployment became relatively high and the relevant capital expenditure and cost continued to rise.”

The telecom operator said its nine months revenue rose 3.9 percent to RMB 481.23 billion, while profit decreased 9.7 percent to RMB 82.6 billion.

Baburajan K
[email protected]