Some analyst firm says there will be 10 million 3g subscribers in China this year, representing 2.2 percent of a subs there. There’s nothing outstanding there, apart from the simple fact that the Chinese government still has given no indication when it will award 3G licenses, and when carriers there will begin selling 3G services. In fact, there are reports emerging now that the government could hold things up further to give a boost to the homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, which would hamper the immediate uptake of EV-DO and WCDMA services.
So, even with all that uncertainty, the experts over at Analysys International (which shouldn’t be confused with another analyst and consultancy firm called just Analysys) throw out that 10 million number, apparently without any sort of caveats. Which is helpful. There are plenty of good analysts out there — but there are plenty that just stick a hockey stick on a chart and send out a press release, too. I guess there will always be a market for wild predictions that may or may not be grounded in reality, particularly in mobile, as long as there’s the next big thing.
Update: This writeup is even better. “…China’s total 3G mobile communication subscribers will exceed 10 million by the end of this year and could climb as high as 100 million over the next five years.” Could hit 100 million, could hit 50 million, could hit 8 billion. It _could_ hit anything — I guess that’s how you’re never wrong.
[tags]analysts, china mobile, china 3g, 3g [/tags]
ugh. don’t get me going.
and the worst is that corporate suit-types demand such reports to support their schemes.
vicious cycle.
These jokers have a really bad reputation in China. Nobody takes what they say seriously. This is not the first time that they make a fool of themselves. Won’t be the last either.
[...] A new research report says that full-track mobile downloads increased 20 times in 2005 (via Abiro) over the previous year, with global revenues leaping from $12.4 million to $251 million. Let’s focus on that, rather than the ridiculous prediction that the number will be $9.3 billion in 2011 (since there’s no telling how they got it). [...]