The number of mobile subscriptions refers to the number of SIM cards being used in each country and not the number of people using a mobile device. The indicator includes the number of post-paid subscriptions and active prepaid accounts. The number of mobile subscriptions in China has steadily grown from 2000 to 2020, driven mainly by a rising middle class, low-cost offering of budget phones and the expansion of telecommunication infrastructure in rural areas. The country crossed 1 billion mobile subscribers in March 2012, reflecting the prominence of the mobile phone in China’s economic and social spheres. Germany has been used as a benchmark because of its high performance in indicators of digital connectivity.
Rahul Karan Reddy is a Senior Research Associate at Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA). He works on domestic Chinese politics and trade, producing data-driven research in the form of reports, dashboards and digital media. He is the author of ‘Islands on the Rocks’, a monograph about the Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute between China and Japan. Rahul was previously a research analyst at the Chennai Center for China Studies (C3S). He is the creator of the India-China Trade dashboard and the Chinese Provincial Development Indicators dashboard. His work has been published in The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, ISDP & Tokyo Review, among others. He can be reached via email at rahulkaran.reddy@gmail.com and @RahulKaranRedd1 on Twitter.
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