This report provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and developments in telecommunications, broadcasting and pay TV markets in China.
Subjects covered include:Key Statistics Market and Industry Overviews Regulatory Environment Major Players (fixed and mobile) Infrastructure Mobile Voice and Data Markets Internet, VoIP, IPTV Broadband (FttH, DSL, cable TV, wireless) Convergence and Digital MediaThe powerhouse that is the telecommunications market in China continues to generate great interest worldwide.
There is no doubting its substantial growth momentum and potential.
Nevertheless the market presents many contradictions.
Telecommunications in China can be characterised by creativity and daring one minute, and by caution and dithering the next.
In fact, it is often out of step with what is happening in other parts of the world.
With the Beijing Olympics in 2008, telecommunications development has been figuring prominently in the nation’s priority scheme as China prepares to showcase itself.The two big topics of interest throughout 2005 and into 2006 were awarding of Third Generation (3G) mobile licences and the restructuring of the country’s major telecom operators.
There were high expectations of imminent government action in respect of these two crucial areas of the industry.
In fact, it was anticipated that the government would move on both simultaneously.
But by early 2006, not much had happened.On the 3G front, China remained poised to become one of the world’s major players.
But what shape its role would take was not yet clear.
The local development of the Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) platform and its acceptance as one of three international 3G standards had been controversial, but had shown a fierce commitment on the part of China to becoming a significant global player.
In early 2006, the government was steering the local industry through the technology adoption phase for TD-SCDMA and appeared to be readying for the awarding of licences later in 2006.
One view was that all three 3G standards would be adopted and licensed, but that TD-SCDMA would some how be given a head start in the market.As for the countries telecom operators, the link between 3G and restructuring is certainly an important one.
In early 2006, the Ministry of Information Industry selected China Telecom, China Netcom and China Mobile to build out pre-commercial TD-SCDMA networks across the country.
This move reinforced the belief that the country’s two giant fixed-line operators - China Telecom and China Netcom - would be awarded 3G licences, thereby making it imperative that the government move on a major restructuring of the industry.
The four major telecom players - China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile and China Unicom - have been struggling with declining growth in the maturing high-end user market, as well as from the reduction or end of network acquisition opportunities from their parent companies.
It is clearly time to restructure.Preparations for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics were continuing in earnest into 2006, making it all the more surprising that the government had not made an early decision on 3G licences.
There was not going to be much time to roll out any significant network, let alone much sure it is working properly, before the Olympics.
Nevertheless, the country has been busy building its massive telecommunications infrastructure, together with a huge subscriber base to match:China has a comprehensive network of fibre optic cables criss-crossing the whole nation; China will install more access lines than any other country in the lead up to the Olympics; China’s voice market is enormous, with the largest number of fixed-line subscribers and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) users in the world; China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers (250 million in January 2006); China’s embrace of SMS makes it the world’s top user of this service; China has the second most broadband services after the US, (There is still much room for growth.); China’s broadband market is on track to become the world’s largest; China has the largest cable TV network in the world; China’s terrestrial TV services reach approximately 95% of its 380 million households; In the push for digital TV, the government intends to end analogue TV broadcasts by 2015.