Synopsis
China is the world’s largest mobile communications market. The number of mobile subscribers in China surpassed the number of fixed-line subscribers in 2003. Into 2008, China Mobile continued to be the world’s largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers. While China Telecom and China Netcom posed a serious threat to China Mobile and China Unicom with their Little Smart PAS services, the market itself was transformed in late 2008 into three major full service operators. In addition, China finally issued the long awaited 3G licences and is poised to become one of the world’s major 3G mobile markets. The local development of TD-SCDMA is seeing commercial deployment through China Mobile largely due to the fierce commitment on the part of the government to make sure that China becomes ‘a significant player’. This report provides an overview of the mobile market in China, mobile technologies (TD-SCDMA, GSM, CDMA and PAS), an overview of the major mobile players and even the huge and unconventional mobile handset market. The report also looks at the steps toward the awarding of licences and adoption of 3G mobile technology in China.