China, the world's largest mobile-phone market by users, said subscriptions rose to 296 million last month, exceeding the US population for the first time, as China Mobile (HK) Ltd and China Unicom Ltd boosted sales.
The nation added 5.4 million accounts last month, bringing new subscriptions this year to 27 million, the Ministry of Information Industry said.
At this rate, the percentage of Chinese people who own mobile phones may rise by 50 percent in less than two years, said CLSA Ltd analyst Francis Cheung.
"There is still a lot of room there," Cheung said, who forecast the number of mobile accounts would rise to 334 million by the end of this year.
"It's a huge country," Cheung said.
China, adding users at a rate of two every second, overtook the US, with a population of 293 million, as the world's largest mobile-phone market by customers in 2001, helped by rising affluence and falling call rates.
Still, only one in five Chinese has a mobile-phone account, compared with one in two people in the US and about two in three in Japan.
The so-called penetration rate in the Philippines is about 30 percent.
"There is no problem for China hitting at least levels similar to the Philippines," Cheung said.
Mobile services in China are provided by China Mobile, the world's biggest cellular operator by users, and China Unicom.
China Mobile's revenue of US$19 billion last year ranked third, after Britain's Vodafone Group Plc and Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc.
China Mobile's sales may rise to US$25 billion in 2006, according to a Thomson Financial survey of 15 analysts.
Unicom's sales may rise to US$12.2 billion in 2006, from US$7.9 billion last year, Thomson Financial said.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
NOT JUSTIFIED: The bank’s governor said there would only be a rate cut if inflation falls below 1.5% and economic conditions deteriorate, which have not been detected The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rates unchanged for a fifth consecutive quarter, aligning with market expectations, while slightly lowering its inflation outlook amid signs of cooling price pressures. The move came after the US Federal Reserve held rates steady overnight, despite pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs. Central bank board members unanimously voted to maintain the discount rate at 2 percent, the secured loan rate at 2.375 percent and the overnight lending rate at 4.25 percent. “We consider the policy decision appropriate, although it suggests tightening leaning after factoring in slackening inflation and stable GDP growth,”
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
As they zigzagged from one machine to another in the searing African sun, the workers were covered in black soot. However, the charcoal they were making is known as “green,” and backers hope it can save impoverished Chad from rampant deforestation. Chad, a vast, landlocked country of 19 million people perched at the crossroads of north and central Africa, is steadily turning to desert. It has lost more than 90 percent of its forest cover since the 1970s, hit by climate change and overexploitation of trees for household uses such as cooking, officials say. “Green charcoal” aims to protect what
RSS