The stock price of China Unicom Ltd hiked to the highest level in more than two and a half years after UBS AG raised its forecast for the shares because of "explosive" growth, Bloomberg News reported Friday.

China Unicom gained 6.7 percent to HK$14.44 ($1.9) at the midday trading break on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the highest intraday level since Aug 15, 2008, the report said. The benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 0.6 percent.

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UBS analyst Wang Jinjin raised her 12-month price estimate for China Unicom's shares by 47 percent to HK$20 from HK$13.6 due to growth in subscribers for the company's third-generation network service, the report said.

Wang titled her report "Explosive 3G growth approaching". Unicom is gaining share of high-end data customers from China Mobile, the market-leader, she wrote.

"We believe 3G and broadband will serve as two main growth drivers to the whole industry, and Unicom will be the key beneficiary," Wang wrote in the report to clients on March 8. "China's market presents a unique case that the dominant operator China Mobile is being handicapped by an inferior technology TD-SCDMA, which provides a golden opportunity for China Unicom," the report quoted Wang as saying.

According to Bloomberg's report, Wang "substantially increased" her projection for Unicom's 3G subscribers for 2011-2013.