China Mobile subscribers surpass total population of the United States
By Dusan Belic on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 9:11 AM PST In China Mobile, Research
China Mobile’s latest figures suggest that the carrier has passed the 300 million subscriber mark, and currently offers its services to more people than the total population of the United States.
Still, most of the Chinese subscribers use pre-paid cell phone services, but Julie Pohlig, senior analyst at research firm Vital Wave Consulting, argues that latest numbers from the Chinese operator provide perspective on the sheer size of the Chinese market, and illustrates the perceived value of information and communications technology (ICT) to a population that has far less purchasing power.
Chinese subscribers pay around 80% less than Americans for mobile phone service, but their typical investment of $10 per month represents roughly 7% of their monthly salary. (via: Cellular-News)
the 7% of salary number is actually a misrepresentation as it uses average income across the country… the people in china using mobile phones is the wealthier class and more dominant in the urban population which has a much higher average income (several X). additionally, a large portion of chinese income is unreported, so the reported numbers are still low compared to reality. and the chinese are great savers, thus the spending power of the chinese population is actually quite significant and much higher than is suggested in the post above.
FYI, saying most subs in China are pre-paid is also not quite correct. it’s about 60/40 on China mobile but it’s reversed on China Unicom. so although there are more pre-paid cards in china, the bias is not that big…
Thanks for posting this info. It’s the Cellular-News that got the numbers. I guess those are official, or at least the available numbers.