All three of China's mobile telcos have just released their May figures, and the huge mobile market has hit another significant milestone: It has surpassed 300 million 3G users.

China Mobile now has 129.40 million on its TD-SCDMA network despite it not supporting Apple's iPhone or iPad for full 3G functionality, China Unicom is now up to 95.9 million on its 3G data plans and China Telecom has convinced 88 million to sign up for 3G. That's a total of 309.5 million on 3G in China.

That's well up from 175 million nearly a year ago at Q2 2012 (see graph below).

Here's a summary of its growth from 2010 to these latest figures:

It's little wonder that 3G is growing so well, with an estimated 160 million active users of Android, and 80 million on iOS, at the end of last year. It's anticipated that there will be 300 million active Android users in mainland China by the end of this year. Of course, many content themselves with just 2G connectivity.

I know what you're thinking: When's 4G coming to China? Leading network China Mobile could well be ready for a nationwide roll-out in October this year after performing many ongoing citywide trials for over a year.

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Apple has gotten a lot of flack over the last month for its after-sales service practices in China, and perhaps rightfully so. But instead of being exploited by Apple, police have discovered that some Chinese criminals used Apple’s return system to turn more than 100 fake iPhones into real ones.

In December, a Wenzhou Apple shop owner turned in what he claimed were 121 iPhone 4S BAND parts (the core of the phone, worth about $476 each) that were broken and asked they be replaced. Apple complied, but discovered in January that the parts were actually counterfeits. Apple reported this to the shop, which maintained its innocence and reported the case to the police.

After several months, police arrested one of the shop’s engineers and her boyfriend, who, in turn, implicated other employees in the scam, all of whom have since also been arrested. In addition to raising questions about Apple’s after-sales service in China and whether it might be too lenient when it comes to returns. But it also raises the question of how many of the iPhones out there are real. Scammers can now make fake parts so real that it takes even Apple itself a month to notice the difference. Read more…

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