According to the 2017 annual report of China Mobile, the company added 35.06 million fixed-line broadband subscribers last year, hitting 113 million in total. In 2018, China Mobile plans to develop more 21 million while the total number will reach 134 million.
By contrast, China Telecom's fixed-line broadband subscribers hit 134 million with a net increase of 10.41 million in 2017, setting a new record in the past five years. Meanwhile, China Mobile’s goal in 2018 already reached the number of China Telecom’s subscribers in 2017. Taking its extensive construction of optical network into consideration, China Mobile may exceed China Telecom in fixed-line broadband subscribers in 2018. In the worst situation, China Mobile’s mobile broadband users and fixed-line broadband subscribers will both rank in the first place in 2019.
The successive growth of China Mobile’s fixed-line broadband subscribers is closely related to its strategy in rural regions. In order to support the poverty alleviation goal in 2020, China Mobile will continue its broadband network construction in rural regions, actively promote targeted poverty alleviation system and carry out special information poverty alleviation projects in 2018.
However, judging from the quality and public praise, China Telecom still has obvious advantages in fixed-line broadband. According to China Telecom’s annual report, subscribers of broadband network which is 100M and above accounted for nearly 50% for China Telecom,which doubled the growth. At present, China Telecom has been purchasing 10GEPON and XG-PON equipment on a large scale, which will push FTTH broadband network accessing speed into a new level.