BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's top three telecommunication operators witnessed a surge in their 4G subscribers in the first half of the year, according to their semi-annual results.
Industry insiders said the rise was partly due to improved 4G infrastructure, as well as the fee-reduction campaign.
The number of 4G users of China Mobile (00941.HK), China Unicom (600050.SH), and China Telecom (00728.HK) reached 680 million, 203 million, and 217 million as of end-June, respectively, an increase of 27.32 million, 28.23 million and 35.27 million from the end of 2017.
Data released by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed the top three carriers had a combined total of 1.11 billion 4G users at the end of June, 73.5 percent of their combined total mobile subscribers. The mobile data traffic skyrocketed 214.7 percent on a yearly basis in the January-June period.
According to semi-annual results, the three carriers will further expand the pilot of 5G technology in the second half. (Contributed by Wu Shuang; Ding Lei, dinglei@xinhua.org)
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