China Unicom April CDMA users hit 680,000
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-20 10:46

China Unicom Ltd said Wednesday the number of subscribers to its code division multiple access network rose by 680,000 in April compared with an increase of 742,000 in March.

April was the third consecutive month the country's second-largest mobile operator posted a decline in its net CDMA subscriber additions. Again, the increase was powered by expansion in its postpaid customer base, which accounted for 68 per cent of the new CDMA users.

The company reported 1.08 million new users of its global system for mobile communications network last month, down from 1.15 million new subscribers in March.

By the end of April, China Unicom had 76.74 million GSM users and 22.3 million CDMA users.

Since January 2003, the company has been scaling back the subsidies it offers customers on mobile phones. Instead, it has introduced cheaper handsets as an incentive to subscribers and to improve the prospect of its two-year-old CDMA business reporting a maiden profit.

Since March, it has also upgraded the national CDMA network to CDMA 1X. The more advanced standard allows the mobile operator to provide faster data transmission and numerous wireless value-added data services, like mobile phone banking and roadmaps.

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