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December 1, 2005 9:59 AM PST
Cell phones outnumber PCs in China
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Cell phone use surges in China
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China's love affair with the cell phone is not dying anytime soon. There are 3.6 cell phones for every PC in China, according to Marine Ma, CEO of Efriends Net Entertainment, an online dating service in China, speaking at the Dow Jones Asia Ventures Forum that took place this week in Santa Clara, Calif.
In the U.S., the ratio is 0.9 cell phones for every PC. As a result, companies like Efriends and ChinaInteractive, which may try to go public on U.S. exchanges next year, spend a great deal of effort to tailor their services for the small screens and short attention span of cellular users.
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Most of western Europe went over 100% in terms of cellphone penetration in 2005. Number of PC's definitely not that high.
I currently live in Austria, rather internet - developed (more broadband connections than US - percentage - wise, of course).
Still, there's noone who ever wanted it without a cellphone or three (115% penetration rate, including babies, homeless etc.)
We have 8 working cellphones - a family of four, and that's no big deal, most people I know have more that one.
Now, with PC's, a lot of families have just one, maybe two (we have also just one desktop and two notebooks).
A lot of people use just their office PC's.
The interesting thing is actually the steady drop in the number of landline phones - young people living alone often have just a mobile. Big companies are moving away from fixed extensions, giving all employees cellphones (free calls within such a network).
Pagers dissapeared 5 years ago, together with the last analogue mobile networks. And WiMax networks (net + phone) are gaining quite a momentum.