China and India Have Most Mobile Subscribers, But Account for Lower Proportion of Global Revenue [Report]

Japan is second in global mobile revenue, despite not having nearly the amount of subscribers as China or India

Mobile market analyst extraordinaire Chetan Sharma has just published his annual State of the Global Mobile Industry report, and it has a number of important insights and observations regarding China, India, and other Asian nations.

His presentation is exhaustive, with a total of 87 slides which you can browse in full below. But here’s a short round-up of some of the more notable points pertaining to Asia:

• China won the race to a billion mobile users over India. This is interesting, as Sharma pointed out in his last report that India was poised to overtake China. Looking back he says that corruption dragged down growth for India. Also of note is Russia in fourth, and Indonesia in sixth in overall subscriptions (slide 28).
• While China and India collectively account for 37 percent of the global population, they account for a marginally lower proportion – 27 percent – of the world’s mobile subscriptions. But what’s really remarkable is that these subscribers only account for 12 percent of the global mobile revenue (slide 29).
• In contrast, the US still leads in data revenue, followed by Japan (whose carriers Softbank, Docomo, and Au are among the highest ARPU in the world) and China. Korea is listed in the sixth position (slide 23).
• In terms of total revenue the US leads, with Japan ranked second, and China third (slide 23).

The full presentation is below if you’d like to read it in full. Chetan Sharma’s website is here, and for anyone with an interest in the global mobile market, it’s a must-add for your reading list.