A China Mobile staff worker shows a 4G mobile phone in Zhejiang province, Sept 28, 2013. Three cities in East China's Zhejiang province started selling the country's first fourth-generation (4G) mobile phones on Saturday. [Photo/Xinhua]

NEW JERSEY -- Telecom manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent announced Thursday that it will supply IP Evolved Packet Core in support of China Mobile's 4G LTE network.

The company said in a statement that awarded 24 percent of China Mobile's overall EPC network, it has become the primary EPC supplier for the Chinese telecom operator's 4G LTE network, which is set to be the largest of its kind in the world.

Chinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE followed with around 23 percent and 22 percent respectively.

China is now the world's largest market for mobile data services and mobile terminals, vigorously growing by more than 50 percent each year. China Mobile is the largest telecom operator in China with more than 750 million mobile subscribers, or more than 60 percent of the country's total.

Earlier this year, China Mobile chose Alcatel-Lucent to deploy 11 percent of its 4G LTE network, consisting of more than 200,000 TD-LTE base stations, by the end of this year, according to the statement.

"Deploying the Alcatel-Lucent Evolved Packet Core will enable China Mobile to offer LTE customers blazingly fast speeds and impressive quality, while driving down the cost of sending information across the network," Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, was quoted as saying.

Under the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will provide a solution consisting of Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router-Mobile Gateway, Alcatel-Lucent 9471 Wireless Mobility Manager, and Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Services Aware Manager.

"As China Mobile builds the world's largest 4G LTE network, Alcatel-Lucent is providing its expertise in IP Networking and Ultra-Broadband Access," said Combes.