 Figure 1.1 Mobile connections by country Q1 2011. Reproduced by permission of The Mobile World. 7 All market statistics and modelling in this book are sourced from The Mobile World. http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/docs/FWIC%202011_Edward%20Zhou.pdf Making Telecoms Work China M Vodafone Telefonica Bharti Telenor Unicom Orange Vimpelcom Reliance T-Mobile Verizon Orascom China Tel Telkomsel NTT DoCoMo Q-Tel Telecom Italia TeliaSonera Axiata Others Figure 1.2 World mobile market, connections by operator Q1 2011. Reproduced by permission of The Mobile World. writing has a substantially higher market capitalisation than Nokia and Nokia has just posted a quarterly loss, both would have been unthinkable five years ago. All the more galling Nokia as HTC has invested substantially less than Nokia in R and D. If you are an RF component supplier, this new vendor community, the China market, the China operator community and China Mobile as the largest operator in China are hard to ignore. 9 However, China has a unique combination of cellular radio band allocations and home- grown technology standards that need to be supported. This implies R and D risk and cost. Vodafone and Telefonica have similar but different requirements but their leverage over the RF component and handset vendor supply chain is now less than it was both in terms of volume and value. The US is different again both in terms of band allocation and technology mix with the added complication that the two largest operators, AT and T and Verizon, do not have external markets to provide additional scale. As a result, even large Tier 1 operators are finding it difficult to source price-competitive performance competitive user equipment for their local market customers. For example, as stated earlier AT and T and Verizon invested close to $20 billion in the 700-MHz spectrum 9 This is particularly true of venture-capital-backed businesses who regard a China Mobile order number as a trophy asset. Introduction and more than as much again in associated 700-MHz net