China Telecom migrated nearly 13 million customers to 5G plans in October, its largest ever monthly gain which took net additions in 2021 to 100 million.

The operator ended October with 168.5 million 5G package subscribers. Its previous biggest monthly haul was 11.4 million in July 2020.

China Telecom’s mobile user base rose by 1.6 million last month to 371.2 million.

Rival China Unicom added 6.6 million 5G package users in October, ending the month with a total of 143.5 million, nearly 73 million of which were added this year.

Market leader China Mobile picked up 24.3 million 5G subscribers, closing October with a total of 355.5 million.

Net 5G subscriber gains for the first ten months reached 190.5 million.

The three added 363.5 million 5G subscribers in 2021, an average of more than 36 million a month. Almost 41 per cent of the nation’s total mobile subscribers were on the packages by end-October.