One Million Brewing in China

Qualcomm has announced that one million China Unicom subscribers are using the operator's BREW services in China as of December 2004. To date, 10 million BREW applications have been downloaded by Chinese subscribers on more than 50 different handset models and approximately 200 local BREW developers are offering more than 800 BREW applications to China Unicom's subscribers.

BREW enterprise applications, in particular, are gaining significant traction, as an increasing number of small and medium-size businesses, government agencies and institutions are using the BREW platform for tax payments, mobile voting, social security information and healthcare applications. Sales of BREW-based applications and content have resulted in profitability for a large percentage of the 200-strong BREW developer base in China.

"The BREW solution is one of the most important contributors to China Unicom's ARPU (average revenue per user)," said Jianguo Lv, vice president of China Unicom and chairman of Unicom BREW Telecommunication Technologies Ltd. "Over the last year, BREW applications and content have become more popular and we look forward to continued success in furthering the market for commercial wireless data services."

In October last year, Qualcomm announced that BREW publishers and developers have earned more than US$200 million from the sales of BREW-based applications. To date, there are 37 commercial operators in 24 countries offering wireless services based on the BREW solution."

Posted to the site on 2nd February 2005