Rising numbers indicate good growth prospects for mobile firms

China's third generation (3G) mobile technology users hit 13.25 million at the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Meanwhile, the number of users of the nation's homegrown 3G standard TD-SCDMA, which has been adopted by China Mobile, hit 5.51 million at the end of last year.

The number of Chinese 3G users has grown rapidly since the country issued 3G licenses a year ago, said MIIT official Zhang Feng at a media briefing in Beijing yesterday.

MIIT's latest figures indicate China Telecom Corp, which has yet to publish its 3G usage figures, had around 5 million 3G users last year.

China Unicom, which introduced Apple Inc's popular iPhone to the country in October last year, said it had 2.74 million 3G users at the end of last year.

Zhu Hongren, a spokesman for MIIT, said at yesterday's briefing that China would not limit use of Google's Android cellphone operating system as long as it conforms to Chinese regulations. "China's telecom market is open," he said.

MIIT previously predicted that China's 3G market would see explosive growth this year, as telecom carriers finish network deployments. Chinese 3G users are forecast to reach 60 million by the end of this year and triple to 180 million by the end of 2011.

As part of its effort to stimulate the economy, the government issued licenses for 3G mobile networks to three telecom firms, paving the way for investments of approximately 280 billion yuan in upgrades and expansion of the networks over the next two years.