China Telecom, the country’s third largest operator, turned around its 2014 subscriber losses this year, expanding its customer base by 6 per cent to 197 million at the end of November and adding almost 37 million 4G users in three quarters.

The operator, with a 15 per cent market share, said it had 43.73 million 4G customers at the end of Q3, representing 23 per cent of its subscriber base. At the beginning of the year its 4G penetration was less than 4 per cent. Over the past two quarters its share of total net 4G additions has been about 20 per cent, according to GSMA Intelligence.

General manager of China Telecom’s marketing department, Liu Ping, said at a recent event it not only had the highest mobile user growth this year, it also had the fastest revenue growth in 2015 and highest device growth, C114.net reported.

Liu said the overall telecoms industry has seen revenue decline 1.9 per cent this year, but China Telecom has grown 0.4 per cent, and while device sales in China dropped 6.4 per cent, its sales are up 3.7 per cent this year.

China Telecom trails China Mobile in 4G penetration, but leads number two China Unicom by a large margin.

China Mobile, the world’s largest operator with 824 million mobile connections, added nearly 20 million 4G connections in October, bringing its total to 267 million, which is 32 per cent of its user base. It accounts for more than 80 per cent of the country’s 4G connections.

The market leader said last week it aims to almost double its 4G user base to 500 million and add an additional 300,000 4G base stations (it already has one million) next year.

Second ranked China Unicom, with a 22 per cent market share, had just 11 million 4G users in Q3, accounting for less than 4 per cent of its total users, according to GSMA Intelligence. Its customer base dropped from 297 million at the beginning of the year to 287 million at the end of November, after falling for 10 consecutive months.