According to Han Xia, director of the Information and Communication Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Electricity and Information Technology, the recent performance reports of operators show that the number of mobile phone users has decreased. Based on the data from the three operators, the following reasons were found to be attributable to the decrease:
First, due to the coronavirus outbreak, many entity channels of telecom companies were unable to operate normally in February, resulting in a slowdown in new user growth. Besides some users cancel their temporary phone cards because of reduced social and economic activities as they cannot return to work.
Second, as people across the country do not need to change their phone numbers to switch to another mobile service provider and the country promotes faster and more affordable internet connection, some dual-SIM phone users no longer see the need for alternative traffic cards, which resulted in the cancelations of the secondary phone numbers.
Han said he believed the number of mobile phone users could grow as economic and social activities gradually resume. According to the latest data from China Telecom, the number of mobile phone users in China increased by 245,000 per day from March 1 to March 22, which is an increase of 114% from February.
