Despite the downturn in the world economy a newswire I read today made me raise an eyebrow. Market research firm, iSuppli, said that China has defied the expected 5 percent global decline in mobile handset shipments.Instead, China’s domestic wireless phone market is projected to increase by 7 percent in 2009! That means the Chinese are expected to continue to buy phones even when their jobs might be threatened this year as global consumption (of Chinese-made goods) falls. That's some 90 million new subscribers in 2009?!
Handout How could this be? First, I heard on NPR that only one third of China's production is for export, so it's not as exposed to the global freefall as we in the West might think. The rest of production is to "feed" the Chinese market of one billion people. Second, China’s three mobile operators are offering discounts and the government is even lending a hand (after all it's still Communist China) as it ponies up subsidies to keep the consumers spending!
But it's not all a bed of roses for China's mobile industry according to The Register who know their CDMA from their W-CDMA :)
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