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2007 continued to be a robust and prosperous year for telecommunications developments in Hong Kong, with the rapid growth of wireless communication services making it one of the most advanced wireless cities in the world.
According to the latest statistical information revealed by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) at its year-end briefing today (January 30), most wireless communication services, including mobile, short messaging and public WiFi services, have shown a remarkable growth during the year.
"Mobile services have continued to demonstrate a steady and healthy growth, irrespective of the highly competitive mobile market environment. In October 2007, the number of mobile subscribers, including registered post-paid customers and pre-paid customers, exceeded a new mark of over 10 million for the first time. The number continued to surge to another record high of 10.6 million in November 2007, representing a penetration rate of 152%. This is one of the highest penetration rates in the world, well exceeding many advanced economies, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and Korea etc," the Director-General of Telecommunications, Mrs Marion Lai Chan Chi-kuen, remarked at the year-end briefing.
"We are also pleased to see a massive rollout of public WiFi networks. Thanks to the vigorous effort of commercial operators in extending their WiFi networks, the number of hotspots has already increased to over 6,400 serving more than 4,100 locations. Coupled with the Government's commitment to install around 3,000 WiFi access points at some 350 government premises by the end of 2009, the public WiFi service will continue to expand. The rapid growth of WiFi public service has enabled local residents and overseas visitors to enjoy wireless internet connection at any time and any place," Mrs Lai continued.
Furthermore, there was a significant increase in the volume of short messages that Hong Kong people sent and received during the year. The volume of short messages that Hong Kong people sent during the period December 2006 to November 2007 amounted to 3.28 billion, a record high since OFTA started collecting the figures in 2002, translating into an increase of 26% as compared to the same period in 2005/2006. The average number of short messages that each subscriber sent in the year was around 338. In addition, the short messages sent and received during the recent festive holidays (on Christmas Day and New Year's Day) also reached a new record by increasing 22% and 47%, respectively, compared to the previous year 2006/07. Detailed mobile service statistics are posted on OFTA's website at www.ofta.gov.hk for public information.
"From the statistical information, we can see that more and more Hong Kong people are using SMS as a channel for communication, in particular on some special dates like Christmas and New Year's Day," Mrs Lai said.
"On the other hand, the new third generation mobile service based on the CDMA 2000 standard will be launched in November this year. In addition to the auction expected to be carried out in the fourth quarter of 2008 for spectrum in 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz bands for the provision of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, more innovative mobile/fixed broadband wireless access services will soon be available in Hong Kong for consumers to choose. It will further enhance Hong Kong as an advanced wireless city," Mrs Lai added.
"The continuous growth of telecommunications services is evidence of the success of our pro-competition and pro-consumers policy. We will continue to make certain that the regulatory environment is transparent, adaptive to market changes and conducive to investments and development of new telecommunications services in Hong Kong," Mrs Lai emphasised.
Looking ahead at OFTA's work in 2008, Mrs Lai said there would be a number of important regulatory initiatives, including the creation of a Unified Carrier Licence as the common licensing vehicle for the development of fixed-mobile convergence, the auctioning and licensing of spectrum for the deployment of key wireless technologies like BWA, as well as implementation of CDMA 2000 services and the spectrum policy framework.
Statistics which show the work of OFTA in 2007 and some key telecommunications statistics are summarised in the annex.
Ends/Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:45
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