China Mobile Operator Subscriber Data, Statistics and Market Share 4Q 2006 - 1Q 2008

Source: industry sources c. 2008 telecomsmarketresearch.com

Over the same period, the number of broadband subscribers rose by 2.23 million to 42.18 million.

China Mobile has reported in Q3 2008 that despite a series of natural disasters including snowstorms, earthquake and floods, by leveraging highly effective refined management, elaborating its network and brand advantages, and adapting proactively and rationally to the changes in the operational environment, the Group continued to maintain a favorable growth in its financial results for the first three quarters of 2008.

The Group’s operating revenue reached RMB 301.396 billion, representing an increase of 16.6 percent compared to the same period of last year. EBITDA reached RMB 159.197 billion, representing an increase of 14.3 percent compared to the same period of last year. Profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 82.590 billion, representing an increase of 37.9 percent compared to the same period of last year due partly to change in PRC enterprise income tax rate. Margin of profit attributable to shareholders reached a relatively high level of 27.4 percent.

Through China Mobile's continuous expansion into the rural market, its subscriber growth maintains a strong growth momentum and the average monthly net additional subscribers for the first three quarters reached approximately 7.42 million and subscriber base reached 436.12 million as at 30 September 2008. However, as the new subscribers are mainly low-end users and tariff adjustments are steadily and gradually introduced in the first three quarters, ARPU and average revenue per minute of usage recorded a decrease. Total voice usage volume increased by 37.0 percent compared to the same period of last year.

In 2007, China mobile phone output reached approximately 594.4 million units, among which, 548 million units were legal products from official mobile phone producers and 46.4 million units were illegal products from official mobile phone producers. In 2007, sales volume reached 180.7 million units, amounting to 16 percent of the world total. In the same year, the global mobile phone output reached 1.141 billion units, of which 52 percent was from the Mainland China, exceeding 50 percent for the first time.

In the first half of 2007, the mobile phone output in the Mainland China totaled 266.8 million units, up 33.4% year on year and its combined sales revenue stood at CNY161.08 billion, up 29.6 percent year-on-year. Among the total output, 32.8 million were for CDMA mode, 234 million for GSM mode. Domestic sales volume reached 83 million units and exports arrived at 183.8 million. In the later half of 2007, mobile phone production reached 327.6 million units, of which 230.2 million units were for exports, and 97.4 million for domestic sales.

See China Mobile Phone Industry Report, 2007-2008 for more information.

Wang Jianzhou, president of China Mobile, on 16 October 2008 provided his personal view of the mobile market going forward, and what he sees as China Mobile's challenges.

Wang Jianzhou believes that China Mobile is facing three new challenges. The first relates to the international financial crisis and domestic macroeconomic situation. The second challenge he believes comes from restructuring of the industry. Telecom restructuring is completed, the telecommunications industry is undergoing intense competition of the changes in the strength of the fixed telecommunications operator to enter the mobile field, competition will become more intense. There is no doubt that competition will bring more benefits to consumers, but operators, the operators further increased the difficulty.

The third challenge he sees is from the ever-increasing mobile phone penetration rate. Like any market for goods and services, the mobile communications sector is limited, with the market as a whole maturing. Today, many large cities in China's mobile phone penetration rate has been reached or exceeded 100 percent, in which case, access to potential new users continues to weaken.

In the face of these three challenges China Mobile has decided to promote TD-SCDMA construction, operation and evolution. Wang Jianzhou says that China Mobile has completed eight cities in the pilot network, and will have an additional twenty-eight cities added to the TD-SCDMA network.

He said that this was China Mobile's test of its core competences. When the external environment changes, the core competitiveness are particularly important. A good team, no matter what kind of changed the playing field, no matter what kind of revised rules, always win, Chinese table tennis team being an example.

China has had to work hard to enable more than 400 million Chinese people to a use mobile phone.

The above article is extracted from The Mobile Labs (labs.chinamobile.com), and can be read in full at http://labs.chinamobile.com/shownews.php?id=8805

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