China telecom market overview

China telecom market overview

Some statistics, over the first eleven months of 2005, on the Chinese telecom market are interesting to highlight:

• the communications industry registered $136,4bn in business volume (+24%);

• telecom operation revenues reached about $65.4bn (+11,5%);

• the number of fixed phone users reached 351m (+12,5%), of which 240,5m in urban areas and 110.5m in rural zones;

• the number fixed wireless phone users (PAS) grew to 86.2m, about 25% of all fixed phone users;

• the number of mobile phone users reached 388.2m (+16%);

• the mobile packet data sector had 65m users, or almost 17% of mobile phone users, and accounted for about 16%+ of the mobile revenues;

• telecom capex was down 8,3% to about $20bn; Research and Markets announced a slightly different figure with $26,4bn in 2004, but gave the split by product lines. Fixed networks including switching, access, broadband, and PAS accounted for 11,5%; mobile networks including CDMA and GSM accounted for 12% (7,5% in GSM and 4,5% in CDMA); 3,6% in optical networks; 2,4% in IP networks; 2% in new businesses (including IN) and 4,9% in operation support systems.