By Huang Xin

"In the first quarter, the communication sector saw stable growth basically ,with 3G network construction well underway, and the Internet industry continued to keep its momentum of rapid development." said Zhu Jun, Vice Director of Communication Development Department of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

According to the latest statistics of MIIT, in the first quarter, China's basic telecom industry has a good starting and the impact of international financial crisis has been reduced gradually. From January to March, the aggregated amount and revenue of telecom business in basic telecom enterprises are RMB714.1 billion yuan and RMB209.66 billion yuan, up 21.7 percent and 5.3 percent respectively.

Since the beginning of this year, the user scale in communication industry has witnessed continuing increase and the mobile and broadband-orientation trend has emerged. From January to March, the number of newly added telephone users is 24.482 million and the aggregated number of telephone users is 1.09 billion with the user popularity rate of 81.6 sets per one hundred persons. And the number of mobile phone users continues to keep a rapid growth; the added user number is 29.489 million aggregately and the total user number is 780 million. The number of Internet broadband access user keeps a rapid development trend; the added user number is 6.105 million aggregately and the total user number is 110 million.

Telecom fee keeps dropping. Statistics shows that from January to March, the comprehensive telecom fee has dropped by 13.5 percent than that in the same period of last year. Additionally, since the "one-stop fee charge system" on distant-calling of mobile phones was implemented in January, it has not only reduced users' expenditure on consumption, but also effectively stimulated the traffic growth. The traffic of distant-calling of mobile phones has increased 37 percent year on year, 15.3 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total telecom business quantity.

In terms of 3G construction, Zhujun expressed that in the first quarter, the 3G construction was promoted steadily, beginning to show the effect on driving national economy. From January to March, RMB6.04 billion yuan has been invested on 3G network, among which, RMB2.06 billion yuan for TD. By the end of March, 367,000 3G base stations have been established aggregately (including 106,000 TD outdoor base stations), the covering range of 3G network has been gradually stretched to the business hot areas in county-level and developed towns.

With the expedition of network construction, from January to March, the number of newly added 3G mobile phone users is 4.83 million (including 1.615 million TD users) in the whole industry, with the aggregated user number of 18.08 million (including 7.69 million TD users).

3G video telephones and mobile video have been applied for individuals, broadband Internet surfing and household gateways have been applied for household, the informatization application in such industries as wireless city, video supervision and mobile office has emerged increasingly, and such new businesses as mobile payment and e-reading by mobile phones have been gradually developed. From January to March, the number of newly added users on mobile Internet business is 27.006 million, and the total user number is 174 million with the mobile users' penetration rate of 22.4 percent.

Besides, the competitive pattern of telecom market witnessed favorable change. By the end of March, the market shares of 3G users for China Telecom, China Mobile and China UNICOM are 30.8 percent, 42.5 percent and 26.7 percent respectively, and the gap of market share has been obviously narrowed. The development of such three enterprises tends to favorable steadily with obviously narrowed gap on revenue growth rate, which has driven the development of market competitive pattern towards balance.

Internet industry develops persistently. As estimated, from January to March, all of the year-on-year growth rates of the market scale in such aspects as e-commerce, network advertisement, network game and searching engine, which have become the main fields for growth in Internet industry, have exceeded 20 percent. Internet expedites the penetration towards traditional industry, new business modes and service economy accelerates the emerging, and the industrial service industries in such aspects as software service and outsourcing service, as well as the cultural industries in such aspects as network cartoon & animation and network music will become the new growth fields in Internet industry.

Currently, Internet has become an indispensable tool in people's life, work and study and is giving profound impact on various aspects of the social life. As estimated, from January to March, the number of newly added netizen is 20 million, and the total number of netizen is 404 million with the popularity rate of 30.2 percent.

Zhu Jun expressed that in 2010, communication industry will take the expedition of structural adjustment and the promotion of development mode transform as main lines, focus on the boost of the deep integration of industrialization and informatization, the promotion of industrial transform and upgrade and the improvement of service standard and quality, so as to realize a stable and rapid development in communication industry.