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June 27, 2007

Chinese Mobile Industry Reaching New Highs


China's economy is thriving with the booming mobile phone market, as the number of subscribers continues to rise.

Government statistics reveal the likelihood of the number of China's mobile phone subscribers exceeding 500 million by the end of June. The website of China's Ministry of Information Industry reported a 6.7 million increase from March to 487.4 million mobile phone subscribers in China at the end of April. PC World published news of the addition of 6.8 million new subscribers in February in China. Read original article

PC World news quoted Jason Yin, the managing director of In-Stat China identifying lower service costs for fuelling this growth. Chinese operators have dropped the Bi-directional-calling charges, thereby sparing users from paying for incoming calls. On-going discussions aim to do away with roaming charges within China.

The country's mobile market is also benefiting from the steady entry of foreign mobile phone companies in China. The handset market witnessed the establishment and current dominance of foreign makers including Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson. Top handset manufacturers like Motorola and Nokia are attempting market expansion with the introduction of low cost phones, boosting competition. The government is doing its bit by increasing licenses for manufacturing handsets.

The growing affluence of China's middle class, and tech savvy youngsters are primary reasons for companies like Nokia and Motorola investing billions of dollars for setting up manufacturing and distribution networks on the Chinese mainland.

China's subscriber growth has mainly been in urban areas like Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai. However rural market is also said to have become the fastest growing sector last year with nearly half the increase in last year's subscribers resulting from the rural market enlargement thanks to initiatives in developing services and products aimed at rural customers.

A RNCOS research analyst feels that the current growth of mobile usage bodes well for the Chinese economy. Spiraling subscriber rates have pushed up value-added mobile service usage as well. For instance text messaging or short-message service (SMS) is currently booming in China. Thanks to this unprecedented growth, China's mobile services providers have great potential for escalating profits.

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