China is the world's largest mobile telecommunications market, but it is far from saturated. Strong growth in incomes will support further increases in subscriptions in 2015-19, especially in rural areas. Rising incomes will also drive upgrading, notably to handsets that support 3G and 4G services.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), there were 1.28bn mobile-phone subscriptions by end-October 2014, up from 1.24bn at end-2013. Similarly, according to MIIT the mobile-phone penetration rate rose from about 90.8% at end-2013 to 93.5% October. Since developed economies typically have penetration rates of above 100%, there remains considerable room for growth.
The authorities are supportive of TD-LTE, as it represents "indigenous innovation". Regulators prioritised the standard during the issuing of the first 4G licences in December 2013, giving China Mobile an advantage over its smaller rivals. It was not until late June 2014 that MET announced it would issue licences under the LTE frequency division duplexing (LTE-FDD) standard, which is preferred by China Telecom and China Unicom.

Telecommunications report 2

Mobile 2

Fixed 4

Internet 5

Industry publishing schedule 9

中国科学技术信息研究所