Synopsis
The Chinese telecommunications market is the largest in the world. The importance of the regulatory regime must not be underestimated in a market like China, where political and commercial considerations are closely intertwined. Major efforts in reform have addressed the separation of administrative and enterprise functions, the dissolution of monopolies and the promotion of competition in the country’s telecom industry. The mobile sector has two of the largest operators in the world with close to 600 million subscribers by mid 2008. The mobile industry was continuing its strong run towards end 2008, despite there still being no announcement on the 3G licensing. By contrast fixed-line services began experiencing zero to negative growth. Despite this, the Internet was booming and in early 2008 China became the world leader in Internet subscribers, surpassing the USA. This report looks at the fixed-line, mobile, Internet and broadband segments of the market in China and provides scenario forecasts for 2008, 2013 and 2018 for each of the market segments. The forecasts are based on historical data from the 1990’s considering population and GDP growth. The projections to 2013 and 2018 consider lower than previous economic growth in both the high and low forecasts, but are still based on improved teledensity figures as the government drives forward with economic reform and infrastructure expansion.