Subscriber Growth For Major Chinese Mobile Companies (CHL, CHU, CHA)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Today China Mobile (NYSE: CHL) posted big numbers in its subscriber growth, claiming 500 million mobile users.  By this metric, China Mobile can claim the title of the worlds biggest mobile company.  However, looking at subscribers in terms of percentage growth over the past year tells a different story.  The first chart below compares China Mobile, China Unicom (NYSE: CHU), and China Telecom (NYSE: CHA) on the basis of  monthly subscriber growth off the September 2008 base.  The second shows the monthly change in each stock price off their respective September 2008 price. (It should it be noted that there is a delay in the release of the monthly subscriber number for each company.)

Chart 1: Monthly Subscriber Growth, September 08-September 09

Chart 2: Monthly change in stock price, September 08-September 09

While some may appreciate steady companies, its hard not to like the exponential growth in China Telecom’s mobile subscriber base.

Garrett W. McIntyre


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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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