National licences for value-added telecommunications

As of the end of April 2023, there were a total of 147388 enterprises (5884 of them simultaneously holding value-added telecommunications operations licences issued by the Ministry of Industry and Informationization and the provincial communications authority) operating with a growth of 1.19 per cent over the previous month, of which 31598 cross-regional enterprises licensed by the Ministry of Industry and Informationization and 121674 local enterprises (districts, municipalities) licensed by the provincial communications authorities, respectively, were increasing by 1.24 per cent and 1.06 per cent, respectively, compared to the previous month.

Figure 1

At present, the regional development of the national market for value-added telecommunications operations is striking. Of the 31598 cross-regional enterprises, 6520 were registered in the east, 6422 in Beijing, 3159 in Shanghai and 50.96 per cent in three locations.

Of the 121674 local enterprises, 21235 in Beijing, 963 in the east and 9213 in the south of the river, followed by Jiang Su, Shanghai and Jiang, were concentrated in 51.16 per cent of the country’s value-added telecommunications enterprises and 16.92 per cent in the 12 western provinces.

Figure 2

In line with the classification of value added telecommunications operations in the Telecommunication Operations Classification, a total of 147388 value-added telecommunications enterprises have 212897 licensed projects. Of these, 100854 information services (on-line information services only), 51797 online data processing and transactions, 19071 information services (excluding Internet information services), 11491 Internet access services, 8305 Internet data centre operations, 687 domestic call centre operations and 14692 other operations.

Figure 3

Cross-regional licensing of value-added telecommunications

In terms of the number of trans-regional operators, the top three operations are, in turn, 16457 business operations (excluding Internet information services), 9420 enterprises operating Internet access services and 7174 enterprises operating Internet data centres, as detailed in the table below.

Table 1

The size of the registered funds varies considerably among the different operators, but there is still a large number of operators with a registered capital of 10 million yuan renminbi. Of the current 31598 operators, registered funds account for 71.64 per cent of the operator’s total, between 10 million yuan renminbi and 50 million yuan renminbi, 14.62 per cent of the operator’s total, 6.86 per cent of the operator’s total registered funds between 50 million yuan renminbi (including 100 million yuan renminbi) and 5.75 per cent of the total number of large enterprises registered with more than 100 million yuan renminbi, as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4

The domestic value-added telecommunications sector has now evolved into a diversified market for financing investment, private capital has developed into a major force in the field of value-added telecommunications operations, and the share of foreign investment enterprises has continued to increase rapidly. As of the end of April 2023, 1509 State-owned holdings of telecommunications operators, representing 4.78 per cent of the total number of operators, 28716 privately owned enterprises, representing 90.88 per cent of the total number of operators, and 1373 foreign investment enterprises, accounting for 4.34 per cent of the total number of operators, are shown in figure 5.

Figure 5

Data source: China Institute of Information Communication Operations Centre