China's three major communications firms together added more than 11 million mobile customers in January, ending the month with a total of nearly 853 million mobile users. Among those, 3G users totaled more than 50 million, according to figures from the mobile companies.

China Mobile attracted more than 5 million new customers during January to bring its total customer base to nearly 590 million. Of the total, 23 million are 3G customers.

China Telecom signed up 3.5 million new mobile subscribers in January to bring its total to 94 million. Of the total, 13.64 million are 3G customers. However, the carrier continued shedding fixed-line customers and saw its customer base fall by 420,000 to end the month with a total of 175 million local access lines in service. China Telecom gained 1 million broadband subscribers in the month to hit a total of nearly 65 million.

China Unicom ended January with a total of almost 170 million mobile customers, which include more than 154 million 2G subscribers and more than 15 million 3G customers. Unicom gained a total of 2.2 million new mobile subscribers in the month. The company also added 292,000 fixed-line customers to bring its total to 97 million local access subscribers in January and 973,000 broadband customers to reach a total of more than 48 million.

Huang Wenge, an analyst of Minsheng Securities, predicted that 3G smartphones will experience explosive growth in 2011, and their market share is likely to grow from 10 percent in 2010 to 30 percent by the end of this year, Xinhua news agency reported.