BEIJING - China's
communications trade (telecom and postal) has posted a
revenue of 378.43 billion yuan (US$45.71 billion) for
the first eight months of the year, an increase of 12.2%
from the corresponding period last year, according to
the Ministry of Information Industry.
Of the
total, telecom revenue reached 341.76 billion yuan
($41.29 billion) in Jan-Aug up 13.1% from one year
earlier; postal revenue hit 36.67 billion yuan ($4.43
billion), an on-year rise of 4.7%.
The
communications trade fulfilled 122.56 billion yuan of
investment in fixed assets in January-August, up 13.3%
year on year. They included 121.5 billion yuan in
telecom sector, up 13.6%; and 1.06 billion yuan in
postal sector, down 16.9%.
China's fixed-line
subscriber base exceeded 300 million to reach 302.9
million by the end of August. Among them, 202.375
million subscribers are in urban areas and 100.526
million in rural areas.
China's mobile telecom
operators recruited an additional 45.15 million mobile
phone users between January and August this year,
bringing the total up to 315.1 million. The monthly
increase in mobile phone users has showed a trend of
slowdown in recent months, with the average monthly
increase equaling last year's level.
In terms of
the telecom service income composition, the
long-distance call and data communications contributed
to 18.6% and 5.69% of the total service income
respectively, 0.28 and 0.66 percentage points more than
the year-earlier period, while local fixed-line call,
satellite telecom and wireless paging made up 32.47%,
0.05% and 0.40%of the service income respectively, down
0.77, 0.01 and 0.16 percentage points.
Data
communications service experienced a 26.2% revenue surge
in the eight months. Three major telecom services
including local fixed-line call, long-distance call and
mobile communications accounted for 93.37% of the total
telecom service income.
In local call service,
mobile communication has formed a rising threat to fixed
line calls. Statistics illustrate that the fixed line
call traffic volume increased 7.5% in January-August,
2003 and 2.7% in the same 2004 period, while the mobile
call traffic volume soared 43.1% in January-August, 2003
and 43.0% in the same 2004 period.
Although the
number of fixed-line telephone users swelled rapidly,
the growth in fixed-line call traffic volume slowed.
In sharp contrast, mobile call traffic volume
skyrocketed, which can be attributed to both the strong
rise in mobile phone user base and a series of
preferential charge policies.
In long-distance
call, mobile communication developed slowed and
traditional long-distance call resumed a trend of strong
growth, but IP calls seemed to dominate the
long-distance call service. IP call made up a proportion
of 45.9% in January-August 2004, rising from 36.0% and
41.5% in the same period of 2002 and 2003 period
respectively.
Statistics show that the call
duration of traditional long-distance calls grew 0.7% in
Jan-Aug 2003 and 27.4% in the same 2004 period; that of
mobile calls, 25.5% in Jan-Aug 2003, and 12.3% in the
same 2004 period; and that of IP calls, 40.4% in Jan-Aug
2003, and 43.4% in the same 2004 period.
Both
fixed-line and mobile communication service incurred an
abrupt decline in ARPU (average revenue per user), due
to the big increase in low-end users. The gap between
them narrowed gradually.
(Asia
Pulse/XIC)
Sep 30, 2004
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