China Mobile’s chairman has issued predictions of increased data demand of over 150% during the course of 2012, which is expected to continue growing at an ever faster rate over the next few years.
According to Xi Guohua who made the remarks during an address this week, the explosion in demand represents both an incredible opportunity and also a huge challenge for the country’s biggest carrier.
Traditionally, increased data traffic has brought along a decrease in demand for more lucrative services and provisions, including standard voice calls and text messaging.
Skype for example has replaced the conventional long-distance communication options for tens of millions the world over, generating enormous revenue for its creators at the expense of conventional carriers.
In the case of China Mobile, ongoing demand for data rather than calling/texting has resulting in a damaging slowdown in revenue growth over recent years.
China Mobile is also known to be facing ever-increasing threats from rival carriers including China Telecom, which offers new-generation services with superior data transfer speeds.
In turn, China Mobile is looking to speed up its implementation of nationwide LTE coverage, so as to appeal exclusively to the higher-end markets of the country.
The technology is currently undergoing testing across parts of Shanghai and Beijing.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems Xi and China Mobile are currently facing is that of a dangerously limited number of Smartphones and devices on the Chinese market compatible with the carrier’s LTE network. However, the shortfall has been described as something of a temporary ‘bottleneck’ in the process and will be resolved in due course.
Meanwhile, Apple has reportedly been engaging in extensive talks with China Mobile over recent months – talks dubbed a precursor to an enormous iPhone invasion across the region and its hundreds of millions of subscribers.
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