[February 25, 2009] Profile: China's Telecom industry in 2008 Tweet BEIJING, Feb 25, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The following is a profile of China's telecom industry in 2008. -- Overview: China's telecom industry reported 2.24395 trillion yuan in business volume during 2008, up 21 percent year on year. It also marked 813.99 billion yuan in revenue, a seven percent increase. It accomplished a telecom fixed asset investment of 295.37 billion yuan, and realized added value of 472.62 billion yuan, up 29.6 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively. The industry's general price level declined 11.5 percent, as free incoming calls were achieved, it charged less for long-distance calls and it lowered roaming fees. The following Chart 1 shows the telecom price change from 2004 to 2008. -- Subscribers The number of China's phone users increased 69.092 million to 982.034 million. Of the total phone users, handset subscribers accounted for 65.3 percent. The following Chart 2 shows the phone user number growth from 2004 to 2008. Chart 3 is the proportion of mobile users in China's total phone users between 2004 to 2008. In 2008, mobile phone users rapidly increased, when February growth hit a monthly record high of 9.458 million. The prevalence rate of mobile phones reached 48.5 sets per hundred people in 2008, up from 2007's 6.9. Below, Chart 4 shows the number of newly added mobile phone users in 2008. Among mobile phone users, the number of mobile group data users increased by 94.78 million to reach 253.925 million, and the penetration rate of this business rose to 39.6 percent in 2008, over 29.1 percent in 2007. The number of fixed phone subscribers declined by 24.842 million to arrive at 340.804 million. Included in that number were 231.995 million in urban areas and 108.81 million in rural areas, down 16.602 million and 8.23 million, respectively. The prevalence rate of fixed phones reached 25.8 sets per hundred people in 2008, down two sets from 2007. The following Chart 5 is the number of newly added fixed phone users between 2006 and 2008. Among fixed phone users, the traditional fixed phone subscriber number dropped 9.201 million to rest at 271.873 million, while the wireless local phone subscriber number decreased 15.631 million to 68.931 million. The proportion of wireless local phone subscribers out of the total of fixed phone users lowered to 20.2 percent in 2008 from 23.1 percent in 2007. Chart 6 shows the proportion of wireless local phone subscribers in the total fixed phone users in 2004-2008. Although family users are still the main body of China's fixed phone subscribers, its proportion decreased year by year, while that of institutional users grew. At the end of 2008, the public fixed phone prevalence rate declined by 1.8 sets year on year to 21 sets per thousand people. Below, Chart 7 compares the proportion of public phones, institutional users and family users in the total fixed phone services in 2004-2008. China's netizen population enlarged 88 million to 298 million in 2008, including 270 million broadband access users and 117.6 million handset access users, up 110 million and 67.2 million, respectively. In rural areas, netizen numbers grew 31.9 million to 84.6 million. The internet prevalence rate reached 22.6 percent, exceeding the global average 21.9 percent. The following Chart 8 shows China's netizen population and internet prevalence rate in 2004-2008. In 2008, the number of internet dialing users dropped 5.033 million to 14.377 million, while that of internet broadband access users rose 17.01 million to 83.425 million. Chart 9 shows the number of new internet broadband users in 2006-2008. -- Business Structure Local fixed phone lines made 618.55 billion calls, down 8.5 percent year on year. Included were 463.92 billion traditional fixed phone calls, and 154.62 billion wireless local calls, down 7.8 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively. The following Chart 10 shows the traffic volumes of traditional fixed phone calls and wireless local calls in 2004-2008. Mobile local phone call duration totaled 2,746.18 billion minutes, up 27.8 percent year on year. Chart 11 shows the mobile local call duration in 2004-2008. The total duration of long-distance calls in 2008 amounted to 421.3 billion minutes, up 2.5 percent year on year. Included were 416.58 billion minutes of domestic long-distance calls and 2.5 billion minutes of international calls. There were 2.22 billion minutes of long-distance calls between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, up 2.5 percent, 0.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively. The duration of traditional long-distance calls and mobile long-distance calls dropped 23 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively, to 88.07 billion minutes and 193.59 billion minutes. The following Table 1 shows the long-distance call durations in 2008. Table 1 Long-distance call duration in 2008 Fixed-line long-distance call Mobile long-distance call IP calls Duration (bln minutes) Growth (%) Duration (bln minutes) Growth (%) Duration (bln minutes) Growth (%) Domestic 86.97 -15.8 191.86 22.9 137.75 -6.4 International 0.58 -14.1 0.77 32.8 1.14 -6.6 Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan 0.52 -12.9 0.96 43.4 0.74 -16.9 Chart 12 shows the long-distance call market structure in 2004-2008. Among IP calls, the call-out duration from fixed phones amounted to 67.89 billion minutes, and that from mobile phone, 71.74 billion minutes, down 4.9 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. Chart 13 below shows IP call duration in 2006-2008. SMS recorded a sending volume growth of 16 percent to 723.08 billion pieces, including 23.41 billion from wireless local SMS, down 24.8 percent, and 699.67 billion from mobile phones, up 18.2 percent. Chart 14 shows SMS business volume in 2004-2008. -- Business Revenue China's telecom industry reported 813.99 billion yuan in revenues, up seven percent. Mobile communication revenues were 448.59 billion yuan, up 15.1 percent; local fixed-line call revenues, 168.57 billion yuan, down 9.4 percent; long-distance call, 115.9 billion yuan, down seven percent; and data communications, 79.84 billion yuan, up 35.1 percent. The proportion of non-voice business revenues, which grew 23.1 percent to 269.29 billion yuan, hit 33.1 percent of the total share, up from 28.8 percent in 2007. The following Chart 15 shows the revenue structure of telecom services in 2008. The industry's fixed asset investment reached 295.37 billion yuan, up 29.6 percent year on year. Below, Chart 16 shows the industry's fixed asset investment from 2004-2008. -- Telecom capacity construction The total span of laid cable increased by 991,000 km, stretching to 6.768 million km in 2008. The length of newly increased long-distance cable hit 793,000 km. Capacity of long-distance phone exchanges decreased by 47,000 to 17.046 million, local exchange capacity dropped 1.557 million to 508.789 million lines. Capacity of mobile phone exchanges rose to include 288.546 million more households, now servicing 1,143.508 million. The number of basic telecom enterprise broadband accessing ports rose by 23.888 million to 109.281 million. China's total number of international export bandwidth of internet reached 640,286 Mbps, soaring 73.6 percent year on year. The following Table 2 shows the detailed indicators of China's telecom capacity development in 2008. Table Two Detailed indicators of China's telecom capacity development in 2008 Unit 2008 indicator Net increased volume Length of cable km 6,767,957 990,669 Length of long-distance cable km 792,554 400 Capacity of long-distance fixed phone exchanges million circuits 17.046 -0.047 Local exchanges capacity million lines 508.789 -1.557 Capacity of mobile phone exchanges million households 1,143.508 288.546 Broadband accessing ports million 109.281 23.888 International export bandwidth of internet Mbps 640,286 271,360 -- Added value telecom services At the end of 2008, China had 20,000 added value telecom enterprises. Basic telecom enterprises realized added value revenues of 176.92 billion yuan, up 18.2 percent, accounting for 21.7 percent of their total revenues. The following Chart 17 shows the enterprises' added value revenues in 2005-2008. -- Development of carriers China's telecom industry was reshuffled into three basic telecom enterprises, namely China Telecommunications Corporation, China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) and China United Network Communications Corporation Ltd. (China Unicom). The third table below shows the detailed development indicators of the three carriers in 2008. Table Three Development indicators of the three carriers in 2008 China Telecom CMCC China Unicom Fixed phone subscriber number (mln) 214 17.79 109.5 Mobile phone subscriber number (mln) 35.42 472 133 Internet broadband user number (mln) 47.18 5.49 30.693 Local exchanges capacity (mln lines) 322 24.34 163 Mobile exchanges capacity (mln households) 54.51 (CDMA) 900 178 Mobile base station number 92,800 (CDMA) 390,000 206,000 Length of cable (mln km) 2.2 2.46 2.11 -- Telecom industry in rural areas Direct investment from carriers in rural area telecom project constructions amounted to 12.2 billion yuan in 2008. China laid phone accessing lines for 30,996 villages with more than 20 households, making the telephone coverage rate in villages reaching 92.4 percent. In terms of administrative villages, 1,322 gained phone call access, with 99.7 percent of the total now able to make phone calls. In the same period, China installed internet access lines for 593 towns and connected broadband for 601. At present, 98 percent of towns can access the internet and 95 percent enjoyed broadband. -- Industry outlook in 2009 China's telecom industry is expected to maintain a steady improvement in 2009. The country projects the industry's 2009 revenues at 860 billion yuan, up 6.8 percent. Fixed phone subscriber number is believed to further decreased 37 million to 310 million, while mobile phone subscriber numbers and internet broadband user numbers may increase 75 million and 16 million, respectively, to hit 720 million and 101 million. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]