Key Issues in Expansion of Mobile Data Communications in China

China´s mobile communications market presents unique market challenges. Market is experiencing a high subscriber growth rate and its implications for business and end-users and investigation into the current status of this market will improve our understanding on how adoption of mobile communications is evolving at the end-user level. In this paper we use a descriptive method to analyze key issues relating to market characteristics of mobile communications with an objective to better comprehend the dynamics of this largest mobile subscribers market. Using secondary data we identify mobile industry and end-user related trends to infer our conclusions for the industry. We find that mobile diffusion is extensive but adoption is polarized (rural and urban) and stratified (based on VAS usage). Usage patterns also reveal low ARPU and thus limited revenue streams for business. Growth of mobile communications is also dependent on growth of other sectors namely banking and logistics, and data services development.