Chinese MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) released its November version of telecom industry report yesterday. According to it, there are 94.83millions new subscribers in 2010 (from Jan to Nov) and in total Chinese mobile subscribers has now reached 842.044millions; 38.64 millions 3G users by end of November 2010 and the total number is expected reach 44millions in 2010.
Sino Market Research also released a report on Chinese 3G mobile phones:
- 50.8% 3G mobile phones in China is WCDMA supported phone by October 2010;
- By end of October, 2010. Nokia is still the biggest players in 3G phones market, takes 30.2%; Samsung takes the second with 18.3%; Coolpad is the third with 6.8%. The rest of Top 10 are: ZTE, Huawei, Motorola, LG, Sony Ericsson, Apple and Lenovo.
- Particularly, 55.5% of WCDMA 3G phones are from Nokia in the market; 14.7% from Samsung and Apple takes 7.3%.
It seems for me Chinese 3G industry is growing super fast, however it is still far behind government’s goal, by end of 2011, the government is expecting 150 millions 3G users! To reach this goal, in 2011, we need around 10million 3G new subscribers every month. But, according to the figures released by three telecom operators in November, China Mobile has 1.854 millions new 3G users; China Unicom got 1.12 millions and China Telecom has around 1 millions. So it sounds a really tough job to do for the operators next year.
Why aren't there subsidies for smartphones in China? I've heard they have existed in the past, is it not a priority for carriers looking to fuel smartphone growth because of the risk of subscribers unlocking the phones?