China Mobile (CHL) now has 500 million subscribers, but it may be able to increase the figure significantly.

As it is now, the company has more customers than AT&T (T), Verizon Wireless (VZ), and Sprint (S) combined, times two.

China Mobile is now in the No.4 spot in market cap among all public companies traded on any exchange in the world with a market cap of over $200 billion. The firm’s P&L justifies that figure. For the first nine months of this year, China Mobile had net income of $12.3 billion. The company added an average of 5.7 net new subscribers a month over the period.

The bad news about China Mobile is that it has more competition. China Unicom (CHU) and China Telecom (CHA) have been given wireless franchises in the world’s most populous nation. That means China Mobile is up against other firms that have the resources to build and maintain infrastructure and spend heavily on marketing.

But China Mobile’s pluses outweigh its minuses. In a developed market like the U.S., there is close to one cell phone for every adult in the country. China’s population of 1.4 trillion people is not nearly that saturated. The wireless carriers in China are building the capacity to carry calls and data into rural areas, a promising set of regions where cell phone use is not nearly as prevalent as it is in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

China Mobile’s other chance for growth is 3G. The wireless networks in China are slow. Most of China’s cellular traffic is run on its own wireless standard, which is different from those in most other large countries. China is opening up its technology infrastructure to bid from providers from outside the country. 3G is coming to China and along with it, new handsets like the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. Smart phones have a bright future on the mainland, particularly if the quality of the networks improves.

In the U.S., the managements of the large cellular companies see their futures in charging customers for data and multimedia traffic.  Those charges, they believe, will more than offset the slowing of the growth in their subscriber bases. The same profit progression is about to happen in China, as its cellular networks are upgrade.

China Mobile still has a lot of growth in its future.

Related Articles:

• 3 Canadian Stocks with Good Value
• 5 China Stocks for Smart Investors
• Chevron Australia Gas Discovery Doesn’t Move Stock