China's broadband wireless industry - A prospective approach

The past decade has witnessed a dramatic growth in the number of wireless technologies. In parallel, the liberalisation of telecommunications markets has led to an increasingly complex set of issues to be dealt with by a growing number of actors. A direct consequence has been the added difficulty in forecasting the market evolution of a particular wireless technology and of the wireless industry as a whole. China’s wireless industry has undergone such transformation in a short time and on a large scale. With more than 200m subscribers, or 20% of the world total, the country has become the largest market for mobile telephony. Since the mid-90’s China has moved from the status of “follower” to being close to the forefront of wireless markets development. This shift confronts all the wireless industry’s actors, from government to manufacturers, with more uncertainty as to the evolution of the industry. Like in other countries, operators tend to dominate the wireless industry in China. Whether this supremacy is bound to last in light of the industry’s continuous transformation is uncertain. Based on interviews we conducted in China, this paper presents a first assessment of the Chinese broadband wireless industry, its main actors, and the major issues they will face in the future. The last section maps out a number of scenarios for the future of the broadband wireless industry in China