Phone giant bullish on 3G adoption

China's largest cell phone operator, China Mobile, said yesterday that 3 million users were likely to subscribe to its third generation (3G) service by year-end and that the company was still in talks with Apple Inc to sell iPhones in the world's largest mobile phone market.

Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, said in Hong Kong that the company expected 3 million subscribers to use its TD-SCDMA service by next month, nearly double the 1.66 million users it had in September.

He said China Mobile's 3G network was expected to expand to 238 cities by the end of this year, covering 70 percent of the country's area.