The headwinds appear to be getting stronger for China’s newest and smallest operator, China Broadnet (CBN). The company reported nearly 44 million 5G users at June 30, well short of its target of 50 million by early 2026.
CBN debuted its 5G service in mid-2022 and had clocked up 33 million subscriptions by end-2024. But growth has fallen off significantly since early 2023, when it set the subs target.
It added just 2 million customers in the first half of this year – a long way short of China Mobile’s 5.9 million net adds and China Telecom’s 3.8 million.
CBN’s pitch has been that it offers a combination of 5G connectivity and local content, carried over a low-cost 700MHz network built with China Mobile.
In an extremely well-served market, where its rivals have deep distribution channels and strong brands, it is no surprise that a new entrant is struggling to find its feet.
CBN’s finances are opaque, partly because it is no doubt keen to keep it that way, and partly because of the dispersed provincial-based company structure, which is very different from the centralized telcos.
Cable business declining
Some of the provincial level cable TV businesses are publicly listed and disclose some financial results, but there are no national disclosures. However, we can make some rough estimates, based on available figures.
One method is using industry ARPU. China Mobile is the only operator that reports its mobile ARPU, which in the first half of 2026 was 45.1 Chinese yuan (US$6.71).
We can be certain CBN’s ARPU is well below that of China Mobile. But even at CNY40 ($5.95), that would yield annual consumer mobile revenue of around CNY21 billion (US$3.1 billion) – not a big number for a company trying to serve a massive national market.
China Unicom, the smallest of the three incumbents, last week reported revenue of CNY178 billion ($26.5 billion) and net earnings of CNY9.5 billion ($1.4 billion).
In their first-half results, the provincial cable companies did not break out any mobile numbers.
But the latest filings from two of the biggest cable firms, Jiangsu Broadcasting Cable and Oriental Pearl, show us that the core business is declining and mobile doesn’t seem to be bridging the gap.
Jiangsu Cable revenue was down 12% to CNY3.7 billion ($550.4 million), and earnings plummeted 49%, while Oriental Pearl’s revenue contracted 11% to CNY3.0 billion ($446 million), although it hiked net profit by 23%.
Even on these few data points, it’s clear China Broadnet is making heavy going of mobile.
It’s not making ground in 5G and it doesn’t have the financial resources to invest in new digital services like its rivals. At this stage, it doesn’t have a path to profit.
