China Mobile numbers - Right time, right place

This has to come under the heading of; "I am in the right place at the right time."

China mobile has more subscribers than the whole of the US population - My initial thought was that while there may be more people, but the US has a higher revenue per person, such as voice, SMS and web browsing.

But oh no I was wrong - Here is a quote from the article:

"Many Chinese spend a greater percentage of monthly income on pre-paid phone cards than Americans spend on food. This says a lot about the perceived importance of telecommunications in that society," says Julie Pohlig, senior analyst at Vital Wave Consulting."

Now I happen to know how much Americans eat. And that is a lot of food... So wow the Chinese are spending a lot of money on mobile communications. Of course they key word to look for is percentage of income, but the point is still very clear to all.

So the next question has to be - What are these consumers spending their money on from a content point of view, and critically from a hardware perspective (Nokia ect) is what can you build into a phone to support this phenomenal growth?

After all the PR buzz from the launch of the apple phone we know that the west is interested in music, but the east would seem to be more interested in games, communication and other mobile services.

A new challenge awaits.