Source: CCTV.com

03-14-2009 21:28

Many people are viewing 3G mobile communications as the next growth opportunity. The service has just started to roll out in China. It's expected to spur domestic demand, economic growth, and technological innovation.

China's 3G mobile communication is sounding off in 2009. For the country's 600 million mobile users, the most in the world, it's a new mobile broadband era.

China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom are accelerating the pace into a stage of all-business competition. 3G infrastructure investment alone will reach 280 billion yuan, providing huge business opportunities for telecom manufacturers.

Yang Hua, General Secretary TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance, said, "Domestic and overseas telecom operators and manufacturers have been looking forward to the launch of 3G in China for a long time. China has the largest market in the world. The 3G mobile technology will be a strong boost to the entire manufacturing industry."

Mobile communications are also a national strategic industry. The application of the new generation technology will spur development in related industries, like semiconductors, micro-electronics, equipment manufacture, raw materials, chips and software. Experts estimates that it will amount to 2 trillion yuan in private-sector investment along the whole industrial chain. That would mean one half to one percentage point of China's GDP growth.

There's also room for traditional Internet applications, such as mobile e-commerce. Alibaba-dot-com, China's leading e-commerce company, is piloting 3G applications for their BtoB service with their mobile trustpass service. Users won't miss any trade opportunity, even if they are away from their computer.

Wei Zhe, CEO, Alibaba.com, said, "Our decision is to launch our mobile trustpass first. SME owners will learn they can manage ecommerce on mobile phone. At the moment, our mobile trust pass is mainly designed on text message technology. But once our customers get used to the mobile solution, then when the 3G network is ready in China, it's much easier to upgrade our system rather than acquire new customers for 3G."

The development of 3G networks is also seen as an important step in boosting domestic demand. 3G phone sales are expected to top 300 billion yuan during the 2009-2011 period. And the 3G network enables broad band and high speed data transfer for a range of services. Visible chatting, mobile phone TV, high speed mobile Internet access, and other applications will soon follow.

The long-awaited 3G era has officially begun. And it will definitely be a strong stimulus to the country's economic growth. But experts say the issuance of licenses is only a precondition. China's telecom and other related industries have to understand the different consumer demands and to create innovative products. That's what it will take for them to develop and contribute to the growth of the overall economy.

 

Editor:Du Xiaodan