The recent announcements by China’s three main operators that they are to rein in capex this year will see total spending on new telecoms kit in the country decline by over 20 percent in 2010, according to new research. China Knowledge calculates that total capex will fall 21 percent to CNY262 billion (US$38.3 billion) this year, while specific mobile network expenditure will fall by 25 percent. All three firms have said they will cut back on spending after making considerable investments building-out their respective 3G networks in 2009, which are now nearing completion. According to recent figures from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Chinese operators invested a combined CNY160.9 billion last year rolling out 3G.

Market-leader China Mobile has said it plans to cut capex by 5 percent to CNY123 billion this year from CNY129.4 billion in 2009. This is expected to be reduced to CNY98 billion in 2011 and CNY80.4 billion in 2012 as it winds-up build-out of its TD-SCDMA-based 3G network. However, it is second-placed China Unicom that is making the most severe cutbacks. Unicom said this week that it expects to cut its total capex budget by 35 percent to CNY73.5 billion from CNY112.5 billion in 2009. Third-placed China Telecom has said that 2010 capital spending will remain flat at around CNY39 billion. However, China Knowledge notes that this spend is mostly related to China Telecom’s fixed-line and broadband networks and says the operator will cut mobile spending by 50 percent to around CNY26.8 billion this year.