The three major operators announced their performance at the beginning of the year!

Recently, the three major operators have successively announced their operating data for the first month of 2019. In January, the three major operators have demonstrated their strength. China Mobile's broadband user growth has increased the most; China Telecom's 4G user and mobile user growth have performed well; China Unicom's performance at the beginning of the year is also better than the first month of 2018.

4G business: China Telecom demonstrates its strength

At the beginning of the year, China Telecom showed strong momentum, with a net increase of 4.94 million 4G users, ranking first among the three major operators in terms of the number of net increase in 4G users. In contrast, China Mobile's 4G business has declined significantly. It should be noted that in the first month of 2018, China Mobile's 4G users ended with a net increase of 8.149 million.

Specifically, China Mobile's 4G users increased by 4.267 million in January, reaching a total of 716.917 million. China Telecom added 4.94 million 4G users in January, with a total of 247.37 million users. China Unicom's 4G users increased by 2.914 million in the month, with a total of 222.839 million 4G users.

In 2018, China Telecom, the "big brother", watched the "fight" between China Mobile and China Unicom from the other side. In the first half of 2018, the development momentum of China Unicom's 4G business can be said to be extremely fierce. With the support of various Internet cards, China Unicom's momentum once surpassed China Mobile. China Mobile was naturally unwilling to be outdone. With a large mobile user base and the launch of several large traffic packages, China Mobile finally ranked first in 2018 with an average monthly net increase of 5.262 million 4G users.

However, at the beginning of 2019, China Mobile's 4G business was crushed by China Telecom. There may be accidental factors, but there is also inevitability in the accident. The author believes that there are two main reasons. ***: China Telecom's average mobile user growth ranked first in 2018, and in 2018 it even exceeded 300 million.

In comparison, in January 2019, China Mobile added 2.411 million mobile users, totaling 927.48 million. China Telecom added 4.26 million mobile users, totaling 307.26 million; China Unicom added 2.763 million mobile users, totaling 317.799 million. China Telecom's mobile user growth is the largest, and the gap between it and China Unicom's mobile users is getting smaller and smaller. Based on the growth trend of China Telecom's mobile users, the author predicts that its mobile users will surpass Unicom in mid-2019 to become China's second largest operator. Quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes, and the increase in the net increase of China Telecom's 4G users is inevitable.

Second: Among the three major telecom operators, although the individual differences in packages are relatively large, from the overall performance, China Telecom's tariffs have always been relatively competitive. China Telecom has always firmly placed quality first. Although it has also launched "unlimited traffic" packages, it has not blindly pursued low tariffs, and large traffic packages are not price war products. This strategy has also allowed China Telecom's 4G business to make steady progress.

Broadband business: China Mobile dominates

Since China Mobile surpassed China Telecom in September 2018, the broadband market has basically been settled. At the beginning of 2019, China Mobile's net increase in broadband users and total number of broadband users remained at the top.

Specifically, in January 2019, China Mobile's wired broadband users increased by 4.854 million, and the total number of wired broadband users reached 161.544 million. China Telecom's wired broadband users increased by 730,000, and the total number reached 146.52 million. The data also showed that as of the end of January 2019, the total number of wired broadband users of China Telecom and its parent company was 172 million. China Unicom's fixed-line broadband users increased by 627,000, and the total number reached 81.507 million.

According to C114 statistics, China Mobile had an average monthly net increase of 3.67 million broadband users in 2018; China Telecom had an average monthly net increase of 976,000 broadband users in 2018; and China Unicom had an average monthly net increase of 362,000 broadband users in 2018. Judging from China Mobile's performance in the first month of 2019, China Mobile still dominates the broadband market in 2019.

Regarding China Mobile's broadband strategy, a netizen named "baiy9099" from the Communication People's Homepage analyzed that many people simply believe that China Mobile is trying to compete, lower the value of the broadband industry, and bind users to avoid cancellation, but this is only one aspect. But the more important reason is that China Mobile has more and more mobile users, and its network has been dragged down by the price war between China Telecom and China Unicom, and the network user experience has dropped sharply, and the new base stations built by force are not a good solution.

"In other words, China Mobile's strategy of giving away broadband for free is more to divert traffic to Mobile Network, thereby ensuring the user experience of the mobile network. Although giving away broadband for free is a loss-making behavior, it also reduces Mobile Network's network construction costs to a certain extent," the netizen said.