Texting Nation

China Mobile, which has a staggering 464 million out of China's 641 million cell phone subscribers, just released its annual report, giving some interesting insights into China's mobile phone industry.  Although the year didn't exactly meet expectations, profits, users, and text message use continue to increase. 

China Mobile's fourth-quarter net profit was up 11% from the previous year, but this growth was lower than the 16.5% growth that was previously predicted. You can attribute part of this difference to the global financial crisis, which the telecom industry was not immune from, but could also be due to the maturing cell phone market.

Even though the profits didn't increase as much as expected, the number of texts and music downloads expanded dramatically.  China Mobile users sent over 607 billion SMSs last year alone, an increase of 100 billion from 2007.  The company also recorded 76 million music downloads and subscribed to over 41 million mobile papers.    

On the one hand you have slower cell phone growth, but on the other hand, cell phone utilizing more resources on their phones.  In a sense, it could indicate the maturing of China's cell phone industry.  While the number of cell phone users in China will most likely continue to grow during 2009, infrastructure growth of the telecom sector may be even more important than increasing the number of users.