China Mobile may be lowering the bar for its 3G development – or at least clarifying its goal. TD-SCDMA Forum Secretary General Wang Jing said China Mobile will target 50 million users within three years, which is half the number floated last summer.

Of course, snaring 100 million 3G users within three years wasn’t realistic to begin with.  Wang said the 50mn target is more in line with the reality of the situation, which is basically this: a lack of TD phones, no killer apps and a slowing Chinese economy are a serious hindrance to signing up users.

A more recent government mandate for China Mobile stipulated that for TD-based 3G to be a success it must acquire 50 million users or one-third of the market within three years. Seems that China Mobile is leaning more toward the former, indicating that China Telecom and China Unicom will outdistance their mighty rival over the long run.

Wang also said he believed that the window of opportunity for 3G would be several years in China. This is contrary to speculation that China Mobile would move aggressively to 4G technology using TDD-based Long Term Evolution (LTE).

On a positive note, Wang said Samsung will release 10 TD phones this year, while LG will release six. Motorola recently rolled out the ZN300, its second phone to support TD. (No word on Nokia.) So far, there are a handful of data cards and about 40-50 phones supporting TD, but not all are available in the market.

This compares to more than 2000 W-CDMA devices on the market, including 192 HSUPA-enabled products and 1,276 HSDPA-enabled devices from 164 suppliers, according to a recent survey by the Global mobile Suppliers' Association (GSA). The GSA counted 512 mobile phone models, 23 Ultra Mobile PCs, 160 data cards or chipsets, 272 notebooks, 169 USB modems, 123 wireless routers, 9 personal media players, and 5 cameras.

Here’s the story Wang is quoted in.