Both China Telecom and China Netcom have lost fixed-line subscribers in August (China Netcom for two months in a row now). China Telecom lost a net of 380,000 subscribers and China Netcom 267,500.
Here is the official explanation by China Telecom:
“The net increase in 2007 was significantly less than that of 2006 mainly due to intensified market competition, especially from mobile operators’ free incoming call packages promotion. In addition, our strengthened control on sales initiatives for low-end subscribers to enhance profitable development further led to a net decrease in local access lines in services for August 2007.”
and a less wordy version (with the exact same meaning) from China Netcom:
“The accelerated decrease of subscribers in August was mainly due to the further reduction of mobile tariff which led to the increased loss in the number of PHS subscribers.”
Unlike the decline in fixed-line users, new mobile subscriptions are showing no signs of letting up. China Mobile added 5.6 million users and China Unicom 1.4 million.
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