BEIJING -- China had about 714,000 3G mobile phone towers by the end of May this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Monday.

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Ownership of the 3G towers is almost equally divided among the country's three leading mobile phone services providers. China Mobile owns 214,000, China Telecom owns 226,000 and China Unicom owns 274,000, according to a statement on the MIIT's website.

The number of Chinese 3G users topped 73.76 million by the end of May, according to the statement. Forty-three percent of China's 3G users also use TD-based mobile phone services.

3G, or third-generation mobile telecommunications, is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services such as mobile Internet access, video calls and mobile TV.

TD, or TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access), is a 3G standard created by China that serves as an alternative to Europe's WCDMA standard and America's CDMA2000 standard.