Today, China has the largest mobile market in the world with over 256 million mobile users. While the absolute number of subscribers is impressive, it pales in comparison to the market potential—merely 20% of China’s 1.3 billion people are currently subscribers. Short Messaging helped jump-start, and maintains the vital pulse of the mobile data market. The CMCC Network facilitates over 80 billion SMS messages each year. The subscriber base is still increasing on average by 4.3 million each month and with ongoing launches of GPRS and CDMA in key provinces, China’s mobile data market will continue to experience exponential growth in the coming years.

Both China Mobile and China Unicom, have followed the successful path of operators in the Japan market by establishing their own versions of “i-mode”. With the “Monternet” and “Uni-Info” business models, the operators bill mobile data users for, and share revenue with, content providers in a manner that encourages fresh development and stimulates innovation.

Amazing China Market Statistics
- China is the number one mobile market in the world with more than 256 million subscribers
- Operators are adding an average of 4.3 million subscribers a month
- China’s CDMA network now boasts over 23 million subscribers
- 55% of mobile users are young working adults between the ages of 25 and 35
- High Speed GPRS Data networks currently established in 18 provinces
- 15.6 billion SMS messages sent in China during January 2004