3G TD-SCDMA a Big Opportunity for Chinese Wireless Industry

(Top News, 12 Jun 2007)

TD-SCDMA represents a significant opportunity for China to establish a global communication standard, to lead the development of the technology, and to own more intellectual property rights, which in turn will lower royalty fees and manufacturing costs, according to In-Stat. However, homegrown TD-SCDMA has made China's road into 3G complex and tortuous, mainly due to the Chinese government's concerns about Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), the high-tech market research firm said.

"The awarding of 3G licenses has been delayed due to the technological immaturity of TD-SCDMA," says Kevin Li, In-Stat analyst. "In-Stat regards the current round of testing as the pre-commercial application that embodies the Chinese government's preference for promoting TD-SCDMA's development ahead of WCDMA or CDMA2000."

The research, "TD-SCDMA Market: Handsets Will Not Be The Bottleneck", assesses the maturity of the TD-SCDMA industry from the point of view of system equipment, handsets, IT/software, chipsets, and operation. It also addresses the following in detail:
1) handset design cost and cycle;
2) the dual-mode issue;
3) handset chipset vendor differentiations;
4) equipment providers' competitive landscapes;
5) IC vendors' opportunities in TD-SCDMA base stations; 6) TD-SCDMA operation strategy; and
7) TD-SCDMA's international opportunity.

The report also found out the following:
- TD-SCDMA subscribers will experience fast growth after 2008, and will approach 52 million in China by 2011, assuming that China Mobile obtains a TD-SCDMA license.
- In the TD-SCDMA value chain, handset development still lags behind that of equipment systems. The main problems stem from issues related to power consumption and dual-mode seamless switching.
- Data service and VASs will be the key content to be tested in 2007.

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