China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd., the country’s top mobile operator, said Monday it added 3.27 million subscribers in November, bringing its total to 200.98 million.

The November addition was China Mobile’s second-strongest monthly growth after it signed up 3.33 million new users in October, the Hong Kong-listed company said in a statement.

The report came one day after its archrival China Unicom Ltd. announced it enlisted 1.556 million new subscribers in November, its weakest monthly growth this year.

China Unicom, which had seen its monthly gains drop to 1.6 million new users in each of the three previous months, attributed the slowing growth to a market that had started to mature.

Within its November additions, nearly 650,000 were CDMA subscribers, bringing the network’s total to 27.168 million. The growth further slowed from 686,000 new users in October and 697,000 in September.

It also added 905,000 GSM subscribers in November, after adding 897,000 in October. It had a total of 83.381 million GSM users by the end of last month.

China Mobile only operates GSM/GPRS systems.

Some analysts believe China Unicom’s recent weakness was caused by several factors, including its decision to focus on profits over subscriber growth and a lack of handset selection for its highly promoted CDMA system.

China is the world’s largest mobile market with more than 300 million subscribers, However, as most of its affluent urban residents have already signed up for service, the two competitors have been striving to maintain their growth rates by exploring less-profitable markets in small towns and rural areas.

(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2004)