About China Mobile Phones

Why This Site Exists

China's mobile networks are notoriously hard to navigate from the outside. Carrier websites are built for domestic ID-holders, customer service lines are Mandarin-only, and the rules around SIM registration, top-ups, and number retention change more often than most guides bother to track. China Mobile Phones started as a way to answer the questions that kept coming up — from friends, from readers, and eventually from a growing international audience trying to solve the same problem: how do you get, keep, or use a China mobile number without living there full-time?

What began as a small collection of notes has turned into a full reference covering physical SIM cards, eSIM providers, virtual numbers, and every practical top-up method we could get our hands on and test.

Who's Behind It

I'm Harry Cheng. I started this site in 2003, back when "mobile internet" in China meant WAP pages and a China Mobile prepaid card felt like a minor miracle of convenience. What kept me writing wasn't the technology — it was watching the same confusion play out again and again: travellers stuck at the airport counter with no Mandarin and no plan, expats losing a number they'd had for years because a top-up deadline slipped by, family members trying to figure out how to reach someone in China without paying international roaming rates.

Every method described on this site — carrier comparisons, eSIM setup steps, virtual number workarounds, top-up routes — is something I've walked through myself before writing it up. If a provider changes its process or a carrier updates its registration rules, the plan is to catch it and update the page rather than leave outdated instructions live.

Content here is published in both English and Chinese, since the two audiences often hit different obstacles even when they're trying to solve the same problem.

How Information Gets Onto This Site

• Hands-on testing first. SIM registration steps, eSIM activation, top-up flows, and balance-check methods are tried directly rather than summarized from a provider's marketing page.
• Direct carrier and provider sourcing. Pricing tables and service details are checked against official China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, and third-party provider sources, with aggregator data used only when an official source is unreachable — and flagged as such.
• Scheduled revisits. China's carrier rules and pricing shift regularly, so pages covering top-ups, registration, and pricing are revisited rather than published once and left untouched.
• Two-language accountability. Publishing in both English and Chinese means claims get scrutinized by two different reader bases, which tends to surface mistakes faster.

We also built a free phone compatibility checker for travelers heading to China.

What's Covered

• Physical SIM cards for China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, including where to buy them and what ID or passport rules apply — see the Shanghai SIM card guide and the Beijing store directory
• eSIM options for short trips and longer stays, including compatibility checks and setup walkthroughs — start with the eSIM for China guide
• Virtual China mobile numbers for receiving SMS and verification codes without a physical SIM — covered in the virtual number service comparison (also available in Chinese)
• Top-up and recharge methods for topping up a China number from overseas, including Top-ups
• Balance checks, account management, and troubleshooting for existing numbers — see the China Unicom balance check guide

Follow Along or Get in Touch

Guides, updates, and answers to reader questions also get posted outside this site: