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China's Wi-Fi hot spots to top 285,000 in 2010
BEIJING, Jul 13, 2010 (Xinhua via COMTEX) --
China's Wi-Fi hot spots will
exceed 285,000 this year, said Edgar Figueroa, CEO of the Wi-Fi
Alliance.
World's telecom operators showed great confidence to develop
the Wi-Fi, particular the Chinese carriers. China Mobile (CHL.NYSE;
00941.HK) plans to add 12,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, and China Unicom
(CHU.NYSE; 600050.SH; 00762.HK) will purchase 70,000 WLAN equipments
this year, according to Figueroa.
As Apple's Wi-Fi iPhone has got the green light to enter
China's telecom network. China Unicom, the only telecom operator that
is authorized to sell iPhone handsets in China's mainland market,
accelerated the movement of deploying Wi-Fi hot spots in China.
According to statistics released by market research firm
iSuppli, by the end of 2009, the number of China Telecom's (CHA.NYSE;
00728.HK) hot spots reached 95,000, rising over 200 percent from a
year ago, that of China Mobile topped 90,000 surging about 800
percent year on year, while that of China Unicom was merely 25,000,
which was about 70,000 less than its rivals.
Edgar Figueroa said that 580 million units of Wi-Fi equipment
were shipped last year, and mobile phones accounted for one fourth of
the total. It is expected that this year the figure will top 800
million, and the shipment of mobile phones across the world will
reach 500 million units in 2014, when 90 percent of smartphone
handsets will support Wi-Fi.
The growth of the number of hot spots of China's three telecom
operators will be about 60 percent in 2010, predicted an iSuppli
analyst. With the increase of 3G service subscribers, China Telecom's
3G data transmission has already experienced traffic jams, and China
Mobile and China Unicom will encounter the same problems sooner or
latter, but Wi-Fi hot spots could be used as a supplementary for
crowded 3G network data transmission.
China's sales volume of Wi-Fi handsets reached 6.6 million
units last year, and is expected to top 28 million units this year
and 96.7 million units in 2013, representing 95.8 percent compound
growth, according to In-Stat China, a global industrial research
institution. (Edited by Luo Jingjing, luojj@xinhua.org)
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