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China Becomes Largest Cellular Market in Asia-Pacific: Dataquest
China, for the time, became the largest cellular phone service market in Asia-Pacific in the first quarter of 2000, according to a report released Wednesday by US market research firm Dataquest.
In the quarter, China had 51.7 million cellular phone subscribers, while the region swelled to 170.7 million subscribers, a 47 percent increase over the same period last year. Japan had been the top country in the region, but it fell to the No. 2 spot with 51.1 subscribers, according to Dataquest.
The market dynamics varies from country to country in the Asia-Pacific region, Dataquest said. In markets like Indonesia and the Philippines, growth has been driven by prepaid services. In Japan and Korea, new Internet services have been the catalyst, whereas in Singapore and China, increased competition has been the prime mover.
Dataquest analysts said that the industry has received a boost by the growth in prepaid cellular phone services. The prepaid segment had 12 million subscribers at the end of March. While the prepaid market only presents 7 percent of the total cellular service subscriber base, it has experienced stronger growth than the overall market.
The Philippines was the largest prepaid country in the region with 2.7 million prepaid users. Dataquest said the country to watch is China, which registered the largest net increase of prepaid customers with more than 1.3 million new users.
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