China Unicom Adds More 3G Subscribers, But Still Waiting for Boost from iPhone 4S

China Unicom (NYSE:CHU; HKG:0762), the country’s second-largest mobile telco, has revealed its user statistics up to the end of November 2011. Despite being Apple’s official partner for the iPhone in China, it’s still quite far behind the number of 3G users that the semi state-owned China Mobile (NYSE:CHL; HKG:0941) has.

In the past month, China Unicom added 3.35 million 3G mobile subscribers to its tally, and 21.4 million new 2G/GPRS users. It now has 36.53 million making use of its WCDMA 3G network, and a total of 159.902 on 2G.

In contrast, China Mobile has, up to Q3 2011, 43.16 million smartphone-toters on 3G. (Newer figures will not be available for another month). China as a whole now has over 100 million on 3G.

Looking at the interactive graph below, we see some solid growth at China Unicom in the past 15 months – a time in which it increased its 3G user-ship by 284 percent from a mere 9.5 million.

The company’s next milestone will be – finally – getting the iPhone 4S officially onto its network, though that has been a tale of patience and false hope.