China mobile would surge more than 150% this year and that robust growth was expected to continue over the coming years, Xi Guohua, chairman of the company, said at the GSMA Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai Wednesday.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the rise in data traffic often comes at the expense of traditionally more profitable services like voice and text messages as users increasingly turn to applications to communicate over their mobile devices, which has led to a dramatic slowdown for China Mobile's earnings momentum in recent years.

Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s (HKG:0700) Weixin service, for example, allows users to chat and leave voice messages for each other without charge. Since its launch last year, that service has generated about 100 million users, according to the company.

Compared to its rivals China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited (HKG:0762) and China Telecom Corporation Limited (HKG:0728), China Mobile has the disadvantage of using an internationally unpopular 3G standard, which was locally developed and favored by Chinese authorities. That means the company cannot offer the same variety of smartphones that its rivals can, such as the iPhone.

As a result, China Mobile has pushed for a quicker transfer to a fourth-generation standard, known as TD-LTE, which would help it better handle rising data traffic and attract more of China's high-end customers.

Sohu IT said the company was conducting its Phase 2 scale-trial in 10 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Guangzhou, and aims to construct more than 20,000 base stations through new builds and upgrades this year.

"China Mobile has the ability to build as many 4G base stations as it wants in a short period of time," said Xi, a former vice-minister of industry and information technology, who succeeded Wang Jianzhou in March to become China Mobile's chairman.

However, the lack of TD-LTE devices could hamper the company's 4G rollout, he continued.

According to Morningwhistle.com, ZTE Corp. the world’s fourth-largest handset vendor, planned to launch its first smartphone based on TD-LTE technology, a senior executive said at the same conference.