Regional Differences and Influencing Factors of China’s Mobile Phone Penetration

Abstract

Accelerating the construction of “digital China†has become an important development goal of China. This paper investigates the regional differences and influencing factors of mobile phone penetration in China during 2001 to 2016 by using statistical and econometric methods. The results show that the mobile phone penetration in all China’ provinces has developed rapidly during the survey period, which with an average annual growth rate of more than 10% in most provinces. Although there is a δ-convergence in the differences of mobile phone penetration among provinces in China, the phenomenon of “digital divide†is still obvious. In addition, the industrial structure and education had obvious effects on the mobile phone penetration in all regions in China. Urbanization had a significant positive impact on the mobile phone penetration in the eastern provinces and central regions, but it had no significant impact on the mobile phone penetration for the western provinces. Finally, government financial expenditure and R&D investment also had significant differences on the impact of mobile phone penetration among different regions.