China Mobile's user loss intensifies: net loss of about 4 million users in the first half of the year

The first half of this year has passed, and the three major operators have successively released their own semi-annual financial reports. From the perspective of revenue, the operators are under considerable pressure due to the rising costs of 5G construction.

Regarding the increase in network operation and support costs, China Mobile stated in its financial report that this is because the scale of 5G networks and data centers has expanded, and electricity costs have increased rapidly. Previously, some experts predicted that if 5G networks want to reach the coverage level of 4G networks, electricity costs will exceed 200 billion yuan. In 5G networks, base stations are also large power consumers, accounting for about 80% of the total energy consumption of 5G networks.

In terms of the number of specific users, although China Mobile is still far ahead, the number of their lost users is still increasing and there is no sign of stopping the decline.

According to the monthly operating data of the three major operators, in the first half of the year, China Mobile lost 3.53 million mobile users, and China Unicom lost 8.947 million mobile users. China Telecom's mobile users increased by 7.9 million. In fact, since 2019, China Telecom has become the operator with the fastest growth in mobile users among the three major operators, and surpassed China Unicom that year.

Some industry insiders said frankly that in the past two years, China Telecom has significantly increased its attention to mobile services and has done the best in integrated packages. At present, in the domestic telecommunications market, it can be said that China Telecom has been attracting China Mobile's mobile users by offering greater package discounts.

As of the end of June 2020, China Mobile had 946 million mobile users, ranking first in the industry; China Telecom had 343 million mobile users, ranking second in the industry; and China Unicom had 309 million mobile users, ranking third in the industry.