[April 28, 2009] Profile of China's telecom industry in March Tweet BEIJING, Apr 28, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The following is a profile of China's telecom industry in March 2009: -- Overview: China's telecom industry registered 586.78 billion yuan in business volume in the first quarter, up 10.8 percent year on year. Its major business revenues totaled 196.73 billion yuan, up 1.7 percent. The following chart (Chart One) shows the business revenue of China's telecom industry in 2006-2009. -- Subscribers China added 23.607 million phone users in January-March, bringing the total number up to 1 billion. The number of fixed phone users decreased 5.495 million to 335 million, and that of mobile phone users surged 29.102 million to 670 million. In March, the number of fixed-line users in China lessened 2.386 million. The following Chart Two shows the number of newly added fixed phone users in 2006-2009. Meanwhile, the number of mobile phone subscribers increased 10.551 million in March, hitting new record high, bringing the total number up to 670.331 million. The following Chart Three shows the number of newly added mobile phone users in 2006-2009. In addition, more Internet users of basic telecom operators are inclined to adopt broadband access service. In January-March, the number of Internet dialing users dropped 3.622 million, while the number of Internet broadband access users rose 4.709 million to 88.134 million. The following Chart Four shows the number of newly increased Internet broadband users in 2006-2009. -- Business Structure The following Chart Five and Chart Six show revenue structure of major telecom industrial businesses in the first quarter of 2008 and 2009. Telecom industry's revenues from mobile communications and data communications grew 10.4 percent and 7.7 percent year on year in the first quarter, respectively, with their proportions in the total revenues ascending 4.53 percentage points and 0.66 percentage points. In comparison, revenues from long distance call business and local fixed-line call business dropped 15.3 percent and 12.0 percent in January-March, with their proportions in the industry's total descending 2.31 percentage points and 2.88 percentage points, respectively. The following table compares the traffic volume of local fixed-line calls with mobile phone calls in the first month of 2009. Comparison of call duration and traffic volume between fixed-line call and mobile phone call in Q1 2009 Index Units Q1 2009 Q1 2008 Growth (%) Local fixed-line call Billion times 139.11 157.56 -11.7 --Traditional fixed-line call Billion times 105.46 118.35 -10.9 --Wireless local call Billion times 33.65 39.21 -14.2 Mobile phone call Billion minutes 743.00 620.55 17.2 The following Chart Seven shows the call duration of long distance call service in 2007-2009. The total call duration of long distance calls in the first quarter amounted to 100.33 billion minutes, up 4.6 percent on year. The duration of fixed-line long distance call and IP call dropped 6.6 percent and 15.8 percent, respectively, while that of mobile long distance call went up 29.2 percent. -- Regional development Major telecom business revenues in Central China and West China increased by 2.3 percent and 8.1 percent on year, respectively, in the first three months of this year, while that in East China slid 0.7 percent. The following Chart Eight shows major telecom business revenues in East China, Central China and West China in 2008 and 2009. The next chart (Chart Nine) shows the growth of fixed-line phone users in these regions. Comparing with the same period of 2008, the net growth of mobile phone users in Central China and West China grew further in the first quarter, while that in East China declined considerably. In terms of provincial regions, telecom revenue of Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces ranked the top three in China. The following Chart Ten shows the growth of mobile phone users in these regions in 2007-2009. Telecom industry's fixed asset investment in Central China and West China soared by 11 percent and 23 percent in January-March, while that in East China was up 4.8 percent. The following Chart 11 shows the value of telecom industry's fixed asset investments in East China, Central China, and West China. -- Provincial Development The Chart 12 shows China's top 10 provinces and municipalities in terms of major business revenue in Q1 2009. The top 10 provinces in terms of fixed-line phone users and mobile phone users are shown in the following two charts (Chart 13 and Chart 14). The following Chart 15 shows the top 10 provinces and municipalities in terms of fixed-asset investment value in the industry in March. (Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]