During the spread of the new crown pneumonia (Covid-19) epidemic in China, the number of users of Chinese telecommunications providers plummeted. According to data released by China`s three largest telecom operators, the three largest carriers have lost nearly 15 million mobile phone users in a total of two months. When the news came to light ," where are the people who disappeared? Some netizens believe that this is the "evidence" that China government conceal the number of epidemic death, but some bloggers hold different views.
According to Hong Kong Cable News program, China Mobile lost 862000 users in January and 7.254 million in February.
China mobile chairman yang jie said on thursday (19th) that the number of new mobile users and new household customers fell nearly 60% in february G 12 million fewer users, and that the operating data had declined as a result of the outbreak in wuhan.
Furthermore, TW PTT forum users verified that, in addition to china mobile, china unicom, which had not yet published its february data, also lost 1.186 million users in january, while china telecom added 430,000 users in january, while it dropped 5.6 million mobile users in february.
Combined with relevant data, China Unicom`s three largest telecom suppliers lost 14.472 million mobile phone users in January and February this year without taking into account China Unicom`s February data.
And in 2019, with the exception of China Unicom`s decline in the total number of users, China Mobile and China Telecom both continue to increase. But there is no information on the reasons why a large number of Chinese users cancel their phone cards.
The news immediately triggered a heated debate among netizens saying :" Fang cabin hospital can not use mobile phones, all returned "," may stay at home to use WiFi "," can not go out, mobile phones are not useful to stop temporarily "," a large number of Chinese businesses shut down because of the epidemic, practitioners are closed at home not ready to renew commercial cards "," mobile phone users to save money to shut down the phone card WIFI"..
Some netizens also questioned :" The users of these deactivated phone cards may have died of the virus. "、" that`s too many, weird... "、" China`s vanishing numbers "and so on.
Nevertheless, according to TW blogger xiao fengzi 3 C club, there are two reasons why chinese users are slashing by more than 10 million. One is that china is pushing for five G, of "zombie users" who are overhauling the old system. The other is that, in order to further strengthen cyber-control, chinese officials have announced the implementation of "identity card" measures starting in december 2019. He speculated that the major telecommunications companies might actively cooperate with the policy from this year to shave off users who did not meet the "identity card ".
