Blog DONG XI
By frog China - January 22, 2009
The China 3G certificate release on January 7th is taken by many people as a big economic event. I have been thinking about the realness of this opportunity. I currently feel the below:
This is a real opportunity, though short term and long term need be driven by different forces. Due to the 10 years marketing investments of the China carriers, cell phone fashion and cell phone culture are widely spread and enjoyed among Chinese people, so the China market consumers do have the potential to consume 3G. But the volume definitely will need a few years’ foster, just as shown in what has happened to many innovative cell phone data services over the past few years – investment to cultivate seed users in the teenager group, the young city inhabitant group and the high-end business group will take big efforts and should be led by the deep pocket china carriers. Good thing is the carriers do begin to show huge investment commitment: they recently committed about 280 billion RMB over year 2009 and 2010 into network and equipments, and billions to subsidize the cell phone companies too. With these fund, 3G is a real opportunity short term, actually driven by the daring spending of the carriers; long term it is still a question mark depends on whether there can be the tipping point from investment driven to user driven.
Some people around us have already become the beneficiaries of this:
