This week the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), China’s telecommunications regulator said mobile phone users exceeded 500 million at the end of June.

A total of 40.56 million mobile phone users signed up in the first half to reach 501 million, an average of  6.76 million a month. But there is still room for growth with 38 out of every 100 people in the mainland owining a phone.

Short message service traffic continues to go gangbusters, up 37.5 per cent to 279 billion messages. These figures also show China Mobile’s dominance continues as it takes the lion’s share of the market. It added over five million users on average each month since March, and 31.1 million users in the first six months. It is dwarfing smaller rival China Unicom, which had 151 million subscribers split across its GSM and CDMA networks. 112 million of those are GSM, the rest CDMA.

China Mobile’s success is also coming at the expense of the fixed-line industry (China Netcom and China Telecom) which is struggling with mobile substitution.  Across China only added 4.86 million users or 810,000 users per month on average in the first six months, adding up to 372 million. 

The lopsided industry where China Mobile’s pre-tax profits accounts for more than China Netcom, China Unicom and China Telecom put together is one reason speculation over industry restructuring fails to go away. It is another reason the fixed line players have been lobbying hard for mobile and IPTV licences.

Of course, broadband continues to be a bright spot for the fixed line carriers with users now reaching 122 million according to latest figures.  

Posted under Michael's Blog