China's mobile Net backward, says government official
An official with China's Ministry of Industry admits that the country's mobile Internet suffers from a variety of problems.
China's mobile Internet business is "relatively backward," according to Liu Lihua, vice minister of the country's Ministry of Industry.
In a speech given at China Mobile's International Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing on Tuesday, Lihua faulted the country's core mobile devices, operating systems, and some of the key mobile technologies, as reported by blogging site Sina Tech.
Lihua also pointed to other problems, including a fragmented app store system, a lack of innovation, and a business model that blindly pursues size over other factors.
Based on the number of users, China's mobile Internet has reached a certain maturity. The number of mobile Internet subscribers climbed to 1.06 billion as of the end of July, while 3G customers now rank at 184 million, Lihua added.
But China's lack of progress on the mobile Internet business front has allowed Google, Apple, and other major players to capture the market, according to Lihua. Chinese companies have created their own mobile operating systems, but the effort has proved to have been too late to compete with overseas rivals. China now has an "urgent need" for its own Internet companies to participate in the market, he added.
(Via The Next Web)