China Mobile keeps rolling in the profit

China Mobile, the country's biggest wireless operator's first quarter net profit rose 22 % from a year earlier on continued rapid growth in its subscriber base.

The company said its net profit for the three months ended March 31 was 17.56 billion yuan ($2.28 billion), up from 14.36 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) in the year-earlier period. China Mobile's revenue in the three-month period increased to 77.71 billion yuan ($10.07 billion), from 65.02 billion yuan a year earlier.

The company added 14.89 million subscribers in the first quarter this year, up from the 14.08 million users it added in the fourth quarter of 2006. It added 5.12 million subscribers in March, up from February's addition of 4.91 million subscribers.

China Mobile had 316.12 million subscribers as of the end of March. The subscriber base of China Mobile is really mind boggling as it figures surpassed that of the population of US and many other countries. I wonder how much more will this figure continue to grow.