876 Million Mobile Users in China through March 2011

China's mobile users reached 875.63 million at the end of March, 2011, an increase of 34 million from the end of the December last year, according to the latest statistics released by China's telecom operators.

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, continues to lead the pack with 600.84 million as of 1^st March 2011, up 16 million from the month of December 2010. China Unicom has a user base of 174.54 million as of 1^st March 2011, and that is an increase of 7 million from December 2010. China Telecom's user base stands at 100.25 million.

Check out our statistics section to find out the latest mobile user numbers, fixed line subscribers, xiaolingtong users, and more.

Online Shopping in China? Taobao's the Answer

In my payment-themed posts so far, I have touched on topics such as transport payment (Yikatong), utilities payment, and even cashless payment in other countries (T-money in Korea). This time I would like to talk about online shopping and online payment. The first name in online shopping in China right now is without a doubt Taobao. During my time in Beijing, I have used Taobao to purchase shoes, jeans, an electric toothbrush (for my boss), a first-aid kit (for the office), earphones, dictionaries, and sunglasses. Just about anything one can think of is available there. It's fair to say Taobao is the Amazon or eBay of China, though its true size and scope are closer to a combination of Amazon and eBay.

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56 Million 3G Users in China through February 2011

China's 3G users reached 55.99 million at the end of February, 2011, a sizeable increase of 9 million from the end of the previous quarter, according to the latest statistics released by China's telecom operators. China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, continues to lead the pack with 16.98 million 3G users, followed by China Unicom at 11.66 million and China Telecom at 9.15 million users.

Check out our statistics section to find out the latest mobile user numbers, fixed line subscribers, and more.

Utility Payments - Self-service Kiosks and Queueing at the Bank

In my last post, I wrote about the prepaid and postpaid options available for utility payments in Beijing. Currently, the most common payment method is still to pay in person at a bank. While my own utility bills are included in my rent, I have made some payments at banks for my company.

A couple of months ago I was asked to pay the company's water bill. I went to a nearby branch of ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) in the early afternoon, thinking it would be less crowded during off-peak hours; indeed, there were only eight people ahead of me in the queue. Yet somehow it took a full hour before it was my turn. Some of the people in front of me spent close to fifteen minutes at the teller window, asking about every single detail on their bill. There was also a landlord making payments for multiple properties at the same time. And these were just the bill payers! The others in line were making regular banking transactions, some of which must of have been fairly complicated, at least based on the time needed. What made it even more frustrating was that when it was finally my turn, the payment was every bit as simple and easy as I thought it would be and probably took no more than one minute to complete.

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Holiday Trip in South Korea: Rent-a-Phones and T-money

I took a trip to South Korea with some friends during the Chinese New Year break, and through my visits to Seoul and Busan, I wanted to write about some of my payment experiences there. Korea is known for having among the highest penetration rates in the world for broadband and 3G usage, and they showed a similar affinity for e-payments, which were much more popular than back in Beijing.

One interesting service we encountered was the "rent-a-phone", which we purchased at the airport just after arriving in Seoul. Since our existing Chinese phones were not autoroam enabled and we didn't want to pay international fees, we had already planned to buy local SIM cards to contact one another during the trip. What we did not know was that we would have to rent the entire phone, as CMDA is the dominant standard in South Korea and there were no SIM cards to purchase. The process was fairly simple, requiring only a swipe of my credit card for the deposit. (In China most merchants would prefer a cash deposit.)

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Over 2 Million New Broadband Subs in China in January 2011

China's broadband users reached 112.7 million at the end of January, 2011, an increase of 2 million from the end of the last quarter of 2010, according to the latest statistics released by China's telecom operators.

China Telecom's user base stands at 64.5 million as of January 2011, up 1 million from December 2010. China Netcom has a user base of 48.2 million as of January 2011, and an increase of 1 million from December 2010.

Check out our statistics section to find out the latest mobile user numbers, fixed-line subscribers, Xiaolingtong users, and more.

Interview with Guangzhou Easylink's Kenneth Cheng

As part of the research for our recently released report, Mobile Payment in China: 2010 Edition, we interviewed Kenneth Cheng, SVP of International Business at Guangzhou Easylink about the future of mobile payment and NFC applications in China. Below are some excerpts from the interview.

With these kinds of services, China often lags behind in acceptance initially. One result of this is that the domestic market often benefits from existing technology that has already undergone several phases of development in other countries. In this way, it can leapfrog to advanced technology and skip many of the growing pains faced by early adopters.

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The Chinamode 2010 Awards Ceremony and the "O2O" Business Model in China

I attended the Chinamode 2010 Awards Ceremony on January 24, 2011 at The Star Live concert hall here in Beijing. It was a full day event co-organised by tech blogs and tech news media companies across the country. The awards, now in their second year, are given to the best web services and apps in China. Apparently last year's event was online only; this year's was both online and offline. Almost fifty finalists had been nominated in eight different categories by Chinese netizens voting online.

The afternoon panel discussions covered a wide range of current topics, including "The Future of Mobile Devices" to "Understanding Microblogging". One that I found particularly interesting was titled "The Future of the Online2Offline (O2O) business model". It was the first time that I heard the term O2O, which refers to the idea of finding consumers online and then bringing them into real world stores.

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2010 year-end China 3G Subscriber Numbers Released

China's 3G users reached 47 million at the end of 2010, a sizeable increase of 9 million from the end of the previous quarter, according to the latest statistics released by China's telecom operators. China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, continues to lead the pack with 20.7 million 3G users, followed by China Unicom at 14.06 million and China Telecom at 12.29 million users.

Check out our statistics section to find out the latest mobile user numbers, fixed line subscribers, and more.

833 Million Mobile Users in China through November 2010

China's mobile users reached 833.19 million at the end of November, 2010, an increase of 9 million from the end of the October, according to the latest statistics released by China's telecom operators.

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, continues to lead the pack with 579.64 million as of 1^st November, up 4 million from the month of August. China Unicom has a user base of 165.53 million as of 1^st November, and that is an increase of 2 million from October. China Telecom's user base stands at 88.02 million.

Check out our statistics section to find out the latest mobile user numbers, fixed line subscribers, xiaolingtong users, and more.