InfoCom says FTTx in China is still far behind other Asian dragons.

Aug. 25, 2010 - PRLog -- Manila, Philippines — With more that 114.4 million broadband subscribers (end-2009), China is the largest broadband market of the world, accounting for over 27% of the broadband base worldwide. On a quarterly base, the Chinese broadband market saw sequential growth of around 5% a quarter, accelerating growth slightly, bringing its broadband subscriber base to over 120,5 million at end 1Q10, over +20% YoY, probably the fastest growing global market. "The broadband market in China is dominated by DSL, accounting for nearly 75% of the subscribers, with over 20% of the subscriber base connected to fibre, probably one of the largest share in the World," said a senior analyst at InfoCom’s Manila office.
InfoCom reckons that this blistering growth is set continue predicting that new additions for following quarters in 2010 quarter will bit the 6 million per quarter with the broadband subscriber base at over 130 million by the end of 2010. InfoCom forecasts that China will have over 180 million broadband subscribers by the year 2015.

In its Electronics and Information Industry Adjustment and Revitalization Plan targeting the equipment industry, in April 2009 China's State Council declared that the country would speed up the "deployment of next-generation Internet and broadband fibre access networks” between 2009 and 2011. The Revitalization Plan foresees incentives and subsidies for domestic fibre broadband equipment manufacturers, and other optical module vendors; and should ease the deployment of about 80 million fibre optic accesses until the end of 2011, quite a high target if considering the existing 25 million FTTx subscribers at end 1Q10.

Chinese broadband deployments are carried out by the 3 state-owned carriers — China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile. While rollouts of China Telecom and China Unicom are regulated according to a geographical logic — China Telecom operates in 21 southern provinces, and China Unicom operates in 10 northern provinces — China Mobile is not submitted by such restrictions and should be able to operate country-wide. Although China has the largest FTTx base in the world with over 25 million fibre optic subscribers (end-1Q10), its corresponding penetration per household lays as low as around 6%. Japan, the second largest FTTx market, for instance, reports 17.7 million subscribers, which correspond to a penetration per household of about 37%, a completely different situation. Another well-developed FTTx market in Asia, South Korea, has only some 6.5 million FTTx subscribers but a penetration per household of nearly 32%. This means that even with 80 million fibre optic accesses intended as subscribers, penetration per household in China would be still at around 20%, well behind the other most developed FTTx Asian markets.

About this contribution: InfoCom has just released 2010 evaluations and 2015 updated market shares for a number of countries. New figures and data are available in Teleseeq, InfoCom’s interactive dataroom, available online. Teleseeq is ONE system comprised of the entire telecommunications and related markets with data available for a huge number of services, with split a large number of indicators, by region, country and carrier, for 85 countries and 10 regions.

About InfoCom: InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with over 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom’s independent and fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.

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InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with almost 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries.