China Unicom Ltd, the second largest mobile telecom operator in the country, announced it added 1.219 million new GSM subscribers in October, bringing its overall subscriber to 132 million, compared with 130.73 million as of the end-Sep, sources reported.

However, the number of fixed-line users decreased by 792,200 to 106.537 million in October, while broadband subscribers went up by 345,000 to 25.20 million.

The company announced that its has formally merged with China Netcom to form a new company China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd on Oct. 15. China Netcom had 107.33 million fixed-line subscribers and 24.86 million broadband users at the end of September.

Earlier, China Unicom's chairman Chang Xiaobing forecast the Chinese government would pace up the issue of 3G licenses and expected to win the license by the end of this year.

 Source:China Knowledge