China now has more than 775 million wireless subscribers, according to May subscriber data released by the country's top three telecommunication companies.
China Mobile, the country's largest operator, added 4.77 million subscribers in May, bringing its total customer base to about 549 million. China Unicom, the country's second-largest mobile operator, saw its customer base rise to 155 million in May on the addition of 1.78 million wireless subscribers.
China Telecom added just over 3 million subscribers to bring its mobile subscriber base to 71.5 million in May.
China is using a homegrown wireless standard, TD-SCDMA, in an apparent attempt to avoid standards dominated by western wireless technology companies. It is unclear whether the use of a different wireless technology standard will allow Chinese companies to avoid royalty payments to western companies with intellectual property rights in CDMA technology.
China's massive subscriber base makes it a hot market for foreign wireless companies but the country's rigid government controls have complicated outside investment, such as Google's decision to close its Internet search engine in China due to hackers and government censorship.
