China Will Overtake Japan to Become Asia's Largest Fiber Market by 2011, Pyramid Finds

China will overtake Japan to become Asia's largest fiber market, with 25.9 million fiber access lines in service at year-end 2011, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com).

China: With the Industry Restructure Completed, the Real Battle Begins offers a precise profile of the country's telecommunications, media, and technology sectors based on proprietary data from our research in the market. It provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services, and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies. Download an excerpt of this report here: http://www.pyr.com/downloads.htm?id=18&sc=PRN072810_CIRCHINA

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In Pyramid's last Country Intelligence Report for China, we projected that the Chinese market would overtake the Japanese market by 2011, but the strengthening of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar means that the event will be delayed to 2013, when China's $168.1 billion in service revenue generated surpasses Japan's $166.8 billion, notes Daniel Yu, Senior Analyst at Pyramid Research. "However, China will overtake Japan to become Asia's largest fiber market by 2011, with 25.9 million fiber access lines in service at year-end 2011, versus Japan's 25.2 million," he adds.

One of the main drivers behind the rise in fiber is a commitment from the government to deploy the technology. "Migration to higher speed, and thus higher-priced, fiber-optic connections, will ensure continued growth in China's fixed service revenue," Yu says. "The industry as a whole expects to spend $22 billion over the next three years deploying a fiber network, increasing total ports from 20 million to 80 million."

China's networks follow predominantly the FTTB/N configuration in metro areas and newly developed multi-dwelling units rather than the more costly FTTH configuration. FTTx service is still considered expensive, however. "As demand for high-speed access increases, economies of scale for both equipment and the CPE costs will increase the affordability of the service," Yu explains. "FTTx will see its share of total broadband accounts rise from 14.8 percent at year-end 2010 to 30.9 percent at year-end 2015; we also expect broadband net additions to top 19 million in 2010 and climb to 24 million by 2015 as fiber technology gains acceptance in the market."

  Press contact:
  Jennifer Baker
  Pyramid Research
  +1 617 871-1910
  jbaker@pyr.com

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SOURCE: Pyramid Research

CONTACT: Jennifer Baker of Pyramid Research, +1-617-871-1910,
jbaker@pyr.com

Web Site: http://www.pyr.com/