iSuppli: China's broadband subscribers to top 184 mln by 2014

By Sophia Meng: Subscribe to Sophia's RSS feed

July 21, 2010 11:22 PM EDT

China's broadband subscribers will rise to 183.9 million by 2014, up from 103.2 million in 2009, iSuppli Corp said on Wednesday.

China's broadband subscribers surged 57 percent sequently in the first quarter of 2010, lifting the country to account for 37 percent of new worldwide subscribers.

Despite the disappointing growth China had in the fourth quarter of 2009, iSuppli expects the growth to continue in the second quarter of 2010, with an estimated 5.5 million net new subscribers added when final figures are tallied.

"While some believed that the poor performance in the fourth quarter of 2009 would signal a slowdown to the stimulus in China for broadband, this doesn't seem to be the case," said Lee Ratliff, senior analyst for broadband and the digital home at iSuppli.

The stimulus plan from the Chinese government will boost the growth.

Follow us

Must Read

Sponsorship Link

China in April approved a stimulus plan, calling for $22 billion investment in fiber networks that will establish more than 80 million fiber broadband ports by the end of 2011.

"Along with the stimulus program, first-half subscriber growth indicates that the broadband market in China is still going strong and will likely remain the dominant for years to come-assuming the economy remains stable," Ratliff added.

To increase deployment of the technology, the stimulus program will provide tax incentives and subsidies to domestic fiber broadband equipment manufacturers as well as to vendors of optical chips and optical modules.

Unlike previous stimulus programs, this new policy directly targets and benefits the equipment manufacturers.

The current expansion in the broadband market and its projected growth due to the stimulus program will continue to fuel the upward movement of Chinese telecom OEMs as well, particularly those with a large stake in the optical market, iSuppli said.

According to iSuppli, the most likely winners from this blistering growth in the broadband space are Huawei Technologies, ZTE, Shanghai Bell Alcatel and FiberHome. Similarly, optical vendors Source Photonics, WTD, NeoPhotonics, AcceLink and WXZTE will see some benefit.

Western vendors that are looking for a piece of the pie from this stimulus program will likely need to partner with local companies or deepen relations with Tier 1 domestic vendors and OEMs in order to take advantage, iSuppli said. And for vendors without a long-term strategy for China, they must develop one quickly or risk being left out of one of the most significant broadband markets in the world.

The seven ministries that will participate in the broadband stimulus program to provide new fiber deployments across the country include the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban-Rural Construction, and the State Administration of Taxation.

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:
To contact the editor, e-mail:

This article is copyrighted by IBTimes HK, the business news leader