In the first three quarters of 2019, the total number of mobile phone users of the three telecommunications companies in China, including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, reached 1.598 billion, an increase of 3.3% according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

Among them, the number of 4G users was 1.264 billion, accounting for 79.1% of all mobile phone users, 4.7 percentage points higher than the end of the previous year.

The total number of mobile communication base stations reached 8.08 million, of which the total number of 4G base stations was 5.19 million, accounting for 64.2%.

By the end of September, the total number of fixed Internet broadband access users of the three telecommunications companies reached 450 million, a net increase of 42.48 million compared with the end of the previous year.

The number of fixed broadband Internet access users with a receiving rate of 100 Mbps and above reached 362 million, accounting for 80.5% of the total number of users, 10.2 percentage points higher than the end of the previous year.

The fixed Internet broadband access users with an access rate of more than 1000M nationwide reached 580,000 households.

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As of the end of September, the total number of IPTV (Internet TV) users reached 292 million, a net increase of 37.04 million compared with the end of the previous year.

In the first three quarters, the length of outgoing calls for mobile phones was 180.5 billion minutes, down 6.4% year-on-year. The decline was 1 percentage point higher than the end of the previous year, but narrowed by 0.4 percentage points from the first half of the year.

The call duration of fixed-line calls was 91.7 billion minutes. It was down 19.3% year-on-year.

Mobile SMS traffic and revenue both continued to grow. Driven by the popularity of services such as service login and identity authentication, the business volume and revenue of SMS services have kept growing.

In the first three quarters, China’s mobile SMS business volume increased by 40.8% year-on-year, and the mobile SMS business revenue reached 29.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.6%.

Pricing and practical features top factors for China smart device users’ purchase

iQiyi, a video provider now owned by Baidu, jointly announced with China’s biggest TV manufacturer TCL to launch 48 inch TV+, also known as internet TV.

According to iResearch, iQiyi and PPS (Baidu acquired PPS this May) monthly users reached 358 million, is the biggest video platform in China.

Data showed that TCL has 25.2% market share by volume in 2012, the largest TV manufacturers in China.

iQiyi Continues Its Expansion in Internet TV Market

iQiyi CEO Gong Yu said, video watchers are transferring from PC, mobile devices to TV, traditional TV manufacturers are facing the challenge of living room transition. iQiyi and TCL combined their advantages, aiming at providing better user experience. TV+ is the first product of the cooperation.

China has about 400 million people who were born at 80s and 90s, who have strong need for videos; and it has not been satisfied yet, said by Li Dongsheng, CEO of TCL.

This time, iQiyi and TCL are going to launch two versions, one is called Zunjue. Zunjue’s priced at 4,567 yuan (USD 741). The first batch of Zunjue TV+ sold on Jingdong will have a 1357 yuan bonus(USD 220), which means first people who buy Zunjue TV+ will only have to pay 3210 yuan(USD 521). At the same time, iQiyi are offering bonus for its members, when they buy Zunjue on Jingdong, they will get an extra 500 yuan (USD 81) rebate.

The other version is called Classic, its price is 2,999 yuan (USD 486), and will be on market in November 2013. Compared to Zunjue, Classic will lower its hardware configuration, content services and accessories. Hardware configuration will follow the market standards. In content services, it will decrease exclusive services. Accessories are standards. Classic is to better meet affordable family needs.

Statistic shows that from January to July in 2013, average 48 inch TV price is 5,274 yuan (USD 855). TV+ has better hardware configuration, the actual price would reach 8073 yuan (USD 1309). TV+ has highest cost-effective in internet TV market.

How to Compete With Other Internet TV Manufacturers?

iQiyi and TCL’s TV+ is based on consumer experience, which is quite different from other internet TV manufacturers. They designed a real internet TV which would be loved by consumers. Gong said they were not afraid price war with others at all, because previous products were not good at consumer experience.

TCL first gave out 1,000 TV+ to different groups, including opinion leaders, normal consumers and its own staff to test. And TCL recorded all the feedback from test consumers. Besides, no other internet TV enterprises could reach 3000G cloud bandwidth.

iQiyi and TCL both expressed the plan to keep updating TV+, to make it a perfect internet TV product.