China Mobile eyes 250 mln 4G customers next year

China Mobile, China's largest telecommunication service provider, has forecast that it will have 250 million 4G customers in 2015.

The company has experienced robust 4G business growth in 2014 and had more 50 million 4G users as of the end of October, China Mobile chief executive officer Li Yue said Friday.

China's 4G is powered by the homegrown technology, Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE), one of the two major international standards in the mobile telecom industry, the other being Frequency Division Duplex (FDD-LTE).

"The TD-LTE sector is maturing, and increasingly accepted by more telecom companies. Given this, we aim to increase our 4G users to 250 million in 2015 by increasing the number of our 4G base stations to 1 million to enhance coverage," Li said during a global cooperation partners conference held by the company in Guangzhou.

China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua said 2014 was the start of the 4G era for the company.

He said the company had 700,000 4G base stations currently under construction and that they would be complete by the end of 2014. He also forecast the company would have almost 80 million 4G customers by year end.

The company has 42 TD-LTE commercial networks worldwide, allowing users to access 4G services in 26 countries and regions, Xi said.