China Unicom, which last month launched commercial 3G services using the standard WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), had just over 1 million subscribers by the end of the month, the company said late Thursday. China Mobile, the world's largest carrier by subscribers, launched its commercial 3G service in January but only surpassed 1 million users in July.

China Mobile runs the world's only major mobile network using the government-backed 3G standard developed in China, TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous CDMA). The standard is unproven compared to those being used by the carrier's rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom. Both WCDMA and the China Telecom standard, CDMA-2000, were widely used outside China before launching there.

China Mobile's fortunes may be turning. Last month, more than 2.3 million subscribers used the carrier's 3G services, it said Friday. That was a rise of more than 600,000 from the previous month, by far the fastest growth the company has reported so far.

A lack of fashionable handsets has often been cited as a challenge for the growth of 3G in China. But more handsets are appearing, including the iPhone, which China Unicom began selling late last month. China Mobile will in the world next month, and China Telecom is in talks to offer handsets including the BlackBerry and the Palm Pre.

China Mobile expects to have 3 million 3G subscribers by the end of the year, the company's chairman, Wang Jianzhou, . The release of more low-end handsets for the carrier's 3G standard will help boost user numbers, he said.