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According to latest data from the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry, there were about 550 million mobile subscribers in China by the end of 2007. Mobile handsets will undoubtedly become the most used media consumption device among Chinese users, if it is not yet. M:Metrics recently released its study on mobile media consumption in China.

According to M:Metrics’ December Benchmark Survey, mobile entertainment is popular among the Chinese, with an astonishing 34.8 percent reporting they listened to mobile music in the month, much higher than other countries studied by M:Metrics. Nevertheless, only 4.4% purchased ringtones, much less than the percentage in US market, and no significant difference with other countries.

10% played a downloaded mobile game in mobile phone; only 0.9% watched video on their mobile handsets, much lower than other countries. Is it partly because of lack of WiFi features in all mobile phones sold in China?

Similar to the email usage rate among the Internet users in China, the percentage of users who use email via mobile phones(2.2%) is much lower than those of other countries, for instance, 11.6% in US. Less percentage of Chinese people use mobile phone to access news or online information as well.

The study also found that while Nokia has a substantial lead in terms of share of handset owners in China, at 30.9 percent, owners of Sony Ericsson handsets are a driving force in the mobile media sector.

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