Snapshot: China Telecom Market
Chinese Telecom industry is unique in several ways
- China has the highest number of mobile subscribers in the world
- All the telecom operators are owned by the Government
- Introduced the home grown technology TD-SCDMA
Structure of Chinese Mobile Industry
China is the most populated country in the world with home to 1.3 billion people. Before 1994, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MTP) provided telecom services through its operational arm, China Telecom. In 1994, reforms were introduced by bringing in a new competitor China Unicom. MTP was later replaced by Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in 1998.
The MII is responsible, among other duties, for elaborating regulations, allocating resources, granting licenses, supervising the competition, promoting research and development and service quality as well as for developing tariff rates. The MII has built up a nation-wide regulatory system composed of Provincial Telecommunications Administrations (PTA) with regulatory functions within their respective provinces.
Currently, there are three mobile operators in China:
China Mobile: Carved out of China Telecom in 1999, it is the largest operator in the world in terms of subscribers with 488 mn subscribers (May’09). It operates the GSM network and was recently awarded TD-SCDMA (China’s home grown technology) license to expand its business to 3G telecommunication.
China Unicom: founded as a Government-owned corporation, established on July 19, 1994, by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII). China Unicom had the CDMA and GSM networks but in June, 2008, the CDMA business of China Unicom was acquired by China Telecom. China Unicom now has GSM and WCDMA networks and is currently the 3rd largest mobile operator in the world with 137.7 mn subscribers (Mar’09). In 2008, it acquired China Netcom, a high speed internet service provider in 10 provinces of China which was carved out of Northern operations of China Telecom in 2002.
China Telecom: It is the largest telecom company of China in terms of revenues and has interests in CDMA and fixed line services. It had 33.2 mn CDMA subscribers at the end of Mar’09 and now has a 3G license for CDMA 2000/EVDO technology.
To sum up, in the last decade the Chinese telecom industry has changed from a state-run monopolistic structure to state-run oligopolistic structure.
The Chinese mobile market is currently dominated by the eastern province in terms of subscriber base, but the future growth is expected to be driven by the western and central provinces. The table below gives the subscriber base for each province by operator (Source: Informa)
| Province | Operator |
Subscriber Base (mn) as on 31st Mar’09 |
| Anhui | China Mobile |
15.2 |
| China Telecom |
1.1 |
|
| China Unicom |
3.8 |
|
| Beijing | China Mobile |
31.2 |
| China Telecom |
1.2 |
|
| China Unicom |
4.2 |
|
| Chongqing | China Mobile |
10.3 |
| China Telecom |
1.0 |
|
| China Unicom |
3.4 |
|
| Fujian | China Mobile |
18.1 |
| China Telecom |
1.0 |
|
| China Unicom |
4.8 |
|
| Gansu | China Mobile |
5.8 |
| China Telecom |
0.6 |
|
| China Unicom |
1.9 |
|
| Guangdong | China Mobile |
84.1 |
| China Telecom |
2.8 |
|
| China Unicom |
17.6 |
|
| Guangxi | China Mobile |
11.4 |
| China Telecom |
0.8 |
|
| China Unicom |
3.1 |
|
| Guizhou | China Mobile |
6.2 |
| China Telecom |
0.7 |
|
| China Unicom |
2.0 |
|
| Hainan | China Mobile |
2.9 |
| China Telecom |
0.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
0.9 |
|
| Hebei | China Mobile |
21.0 |
| China Telecom |
1.8 |
|
| China Unicom |
8.9 |
|
| Heilongjiang | China Mobile |
11.1 |
| China Telecom |
1.3 |
|
| China Unicom |
4.1 |
|
| Henan | China Mobile |
17.5 |
| China Telecom |
1.3 |
|
| China Unicom |
8.1 |
|
| Hubei | China Mobile |
14.1 |
| China Telecom |
1.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
4.9 |
|
| Hunan | China Mobile |
17.2 |
| China Telecom |
1.0 |
|
| China Unicom |
5.1 |
|
| Inner Mangolia | China Mobile |
7.6 |
| China Telecom |
0.8 |
|
| China Unicom |
3.2 |
|
| Jiangsu | China Mobile |
30.2 |
| China Telecom |
1.5 |
|
| China Unicom |
7.3 |
|
| Jiangxi | China Mobile |
11.1 |
| China Telecom |
0.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
2.4 |
|
| Jilin | China Mobile |
9.9 |
| China Telecom |
0.9 |
|
| China Unicom |
3.6 |
|
| Liaoning | China Mobile |
16.4 |
| China Telecom |
1.6 |
|
| China Unicom |
5.7 |
|
| Ningxia | China Mobile |
2.2 |
| China Telecom |
0.2 |
|
| China Unicom |
0.9 |
|
| Qinghai | China Mobile |
1.2 |
| China Telecom |
0.1 |
|
| China Unicom |
0.7 |
|
| Shaanxi | China Mobile |
9.7 |
| China Telecom |
1.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
5.0 |
|
| Shandong | China Mobile |
25.8 |
| China Telecom |
2.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
7.3 |
|
| Shanghai | China Mobile |
15.5 |
| China Telecom |
1.6 |
|
| China Unicom |
2.5 |
|
| Shanxi | China Mobile |
8.9 |
| China Telecom |
0.8 |
|
| China Unicom |
4.0 |
|
| Sichuan | China Mobile |
17.3 |
| China Telecom |
1.0 |
|
| China Unicom |
6.7 |
|
| Tianjin | China Mobile |
7.0 |
| China Telecom |
0.5 |
|
| China Unicom |
1.7 |
|
| Tibet | China Mobile |
0.9 |
| China Telecom |
0.4 |
|
| China Unicom |
0.1 |
|
| Xinjiang | China Mobile |
5.6 |
| China Telecom |
0.7 |
|
| China Unicom |
1.8 |
|
| Yunnan | China Mobile |
11.4 |
| China Telecom |
0.7 |
|
| China Unicom |
2.5 |
|
| Zhejiang | China Mobile |
30.1 |
| China Telecom |
2.3 |
|
| China Unicom |
9.7 |
|
| Total |
647.7 |
Also Read: Snapshot – India Telecom Market
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Thanks for your sharing. Recently, besides state-owned telecom operators in China, some of JV and private operators are growing to play a role of providing services, such as CPCnet, Pacnet China and our company Cypress Telecom.
More and more foreign corporates begin to choice these T2 operators to provider services for them in China.