China Mobile, the world's biggest mobile operator by users, yesterday reported a 3.5 percent rise in quarterly earnings, matching expectations, as a maturing market and intense competition eat into its profits.

The results could set the tone for rivals China Unicom and China Telecom, who are also expected to post flat or a fall in profits when they report results next week.

China Mobile reported July-September net profit of 29.65 billion yuan (US$4.45 billion), based on calculations using company data, matching an average forecast of 29.6 billion yuan from five analysts polled by Reuters and up from 28.64 billion yuan a year ago.

"As a result of the increasing penetration rate of mobile telecommunications and the changes in the competition environment of the telecommunications industry, the group's customer growth showed signs of slowing down," the company said in a statement yesterday.

China Mobile is the world's biggest mobile operator by market capitalization and number of users. Its subscriber base of more than 500 million users is bigger than the population of the United States, Australia and Germany combined.

But mobile penetration in China remains low compared with developed economies.