Trend unlikely to dissuade Beijing from issuing a 3G licence based on CDMA
The gap between the number of GSM and CDMA mobile phones sold in China last year widened from a year earlier from a ratio of around 5-1 to 10-1, although analysts don't expect the figures to dissuade Beijing from issuing a 3G licence based on the CDMA network technology.
Alan Hadden, president of the Global Mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), said China was following a worldwide trend, with GSM phones outnumbering CDMA phones sold by 7.7-1 globally.
'While I don't believe that China would exclude the choice for CDMA [when it issues licences for 3G], increasingly you see more CDMA operators worldwide moving their customers to GSM or the 3G WCDMA standard due to their benefit of scale and worldwide roaming,' Mr Hadden said.
There were 358.55 million GSM subscribers compared to just 33.64 million CDMA customers in China as of last month. China Unicom is the only operator that runs CDMA, although it also has a GSM network.
According to research firm Analysys International, out of the total 78.96 million phones sold in the country last year, 72.13 million, or 91 per cent, were GSM.