The growth in international traffic has been extremely high over the past decade, reflecting Hong Kong's high overall economic growth, its position as a gateway to China and its strength in trading, finance and tourism, all of which rely heavily on international telecommunications. Outgoing IDD calls have grown from 0.36 million calls in 1977 to 36 million in 1987 at a compound rate of 58% p.a. (although they have grown more slowly over the past 5 years at 41% p.a.). This is considerably faster than the growth, in either Singapore (35% p.a.) or Australia (30% p.a.) over the past decade.
It is surpassed only by China, where growth in international calls has averaged 76% p.a. from 1976 to 1985, but from a far smaller base. Hong Kong's growth in international traffic is also high by European standards and far exceeds the growth rates in Italy, West Germany and the UK as illustrated in Exhibit 2.10. The growth in Hong Kong's international calls measured in terms of minutes has been 27% p.a. over the last four years. This is greater than the growth in Japan, which reached only 20% over the same period (1977-1985).
80% of Hong Kong's 200 million outgoing paid minutes is generated by the 10 countries shown in Exhibit 2.11. International outgoing voice traffic accounts for approximately 1.4% of the local call traffic measured in minutes.
EXHIBIT 2.11 GROWTH OF OUTGOING INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE CALL TRAFFIC AND BREAKDOWN BY DESTINATION
1983
1987
million
million
minutes
minutes
% p.a. growth
IDD [1]
50.2
162.1
34.1
Operator-assisted
26.3
36.6
8.6
TOTAL
76.5
198.7
27.0
DESTINATION [2]
% share of total outgoing telephone paid minutes
China
24
USA
13
Japan
9
Taiwan
9
UK
7
Macao
5
Singapore
5
Australia
4
Canada
4
Philippines
3
Other
17
100
Source: CWHK
1. Including facsimile calls not routed through the Direct Data Dialling
facilities
2. 1987 year-to-date figures.
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