Reports today state that China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, plans to invest CNY58.8 billion (US$8.6 billion) this year on TD-SCDMA technology. An AFP report notes that in a statement on its website, China Mobile said it will use the money to build around 60,000 TD-SCDMA base stations covering 238 cities, which will take its total number of TD-SCDMA base stations deployed by the end of this year to 80,000. China Mobile already has around 20,000 TD-SCDMA base stations in operation from earlier trials.

The announcement follows last week’s award of 3G licenses in the world’s largest mobile market. China Mobile has been granted a license to deploy commercial nationwide services based on China’s homegrown 3G technology, TD-SCDMA, whilst China Unicom and China Telecom will launch 3G services based on global standards WCDMA and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, respectively. The move is expected to trigger investment levels of about US$41 billion over the next two years. The license awards will be welcomed by domestic network infrastructure vendors such as Huawei and ZTE, as well as western suppliers such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks, especially as the mobile network equipment market is predicted to face a challenging twelve months in light of the global economic downturn.