[December 30, 2008] Roundup: Profile of China's telecom industry in Jan.-Nov. 2008 Tweet BEIJING, Dec 30, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Following is a profile of China's telecom industry in the January-November period of 2008: -- Overview: China's telecom industry reported 2.04605 trillion yuan in business volume in January-November, up 21.7 percent on year, and 746.13 billion yuan in revenue, up 7.6 percent. -- Subscribers In the January-November period of 2008, the number of fixed-line users dropped 17.158 million to 348.479 million from a year earlier. Included were 237.09 million in urban area, down 11.508 million, and 111.39 million in rural area, down 5.65 million. The number of wireless local phone users fell 12.259 million to 72.303 million, and its proportion in the number of fixed phone users dropped to 20.7 percent, 2.4 percentage points lower than the year-end of 2007. The number of mobile phone subscribers increased by 86.534 million in January-November to 633.840 million at present. In addition, more and more Internet users of basic telecom enterprises inclined to adopt broadband access service. In the first 11 months, the number of Internet dialing users of basic telecom enterprises dropped 4.788 million, while that of Internet broadband access users rose 16.966 million to 83.380 million. -- Business Structure 1. Composition of telecom business income During the period from January to November, business income of mobile telecom and data telecom rose 15.2 percent and 38.8 percent on year, respectively, with the proportion in the total income up 3.59 percentage points and 2.24 percentage points, respectively, and that of long distance calls and local fixed phone calls declined 6.7 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively, with the proportion in the total income down 2.19 percentage points and 3.73 percentage points, respectively. Following are charts (Chart 1-3) reflecting composition of telecom business income in January-November 2007 and 2008 respectively: Chart 1 Chart 2 Chart 3 2. Local phone call business In January-November, traffic volume of local fixed phone calls dropped 8.5 percent on year, while call duration of local mobile phone calls soared 28.6 percent. The following table compares the traffic volume of local fixed phone calls with mobile phone calls in the first eleven months of 2008. Table 1 Comparison of traffic volume between fixed phone calls and mobile phone calls Units Jan.-Nov. 2008 Jan.- Oct. 2007 Growth y-o-y (%) Local fixed phone call Billion times 568.21 620.79 -8.5 --Traditional fixed phone call Billion times 426.01 461.49 -7.7 --Wireless Local Call Billion times 142.20 159.31 -10.7 Mobile phone call Billion minutes 2,498.40 1,942.79 28.6 3. Long distance phone call business The total duration of long-distance calls in January-November amounted to 385.81 billion minutes, up 3.2 percent on year. The duration of fixed-line long-distance calls and IP calls dropped 16.0 percent and 6.0 percent, respectively, while that of mobile long-distance calls went up 25 percent. The following chart (Chart 4) compares the call duration of different types of long distance phone calls in Jan.-Nov. from 2006 to 2008: Chart 4 -- Comparison by region 1. Business income Telecom business income in China's eastern, middle and western regions soared by 7.0 percent, 7.8 percent and 10.7 percent respectively from January to November. The following chart (Chart 5) compares the telecom business income in different parts of China in 2007 and 2008: Chart 5 2. Added number of fixed phone users Compared with the same period last year, the number of fixed phone users in East China and West China declined moderately while that in Central China fell by the largest margin. The following chart (chart 6) shows the added number of fixed phone users in different regions: Chart 6 3. Added number of mobile users Compared with the same period last year, the number of mobile users in East China and West China increased by a large margin while that in Central China remained basically the same. The following chart (Chart 7) shows the added number of mobile users in China's different regions from 2006 to 2008: Chart 7 (Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]