China Mobile, the largest mobile player in the world by connections, surpassed the 1 billion subscriber mark at the end of Q2 with the company adding nearly 9.3 million new subs year-on-year.

The operator’s user base is more than twice that of the world’s second-largest player Reliance Jio in India which has 489.7 million, data from GSMA Intelligence showed.

China Telecom was third with nearly 417 million mobile subs, Bharti Airtel fourth with 355.8 million, followed by China Unicom with 339.5 million.

In Q2 2019, just months before 5G launched in the mainland, China Mobile had 935 million subs. Its net additions since then is larger than all but 23 operators worldwide.

China Broadnet, the country’s fourth mobile player, ended June with 65.6 million subs, GSMA Intelligence estimates.

China Mobile closed June with 514.2 million 5G network customers, accounting for 51.4 per cent of total subs. Its 5G base station count increased by 351,000 in H1 to 2.3 million.