More information about this than I had before, which was none that I have ever seen. It also points out a disturbing fact there is no escape from the phone anywhere on this planet intellectually I knew this but this hammered it home.

You forgot to mention that a lot of tarrifs here (China) you still pay for incoming calls thought.

Also calls cost more if you move out of the province (or even city), and some don't work out of the province unless you arrange it in advance. Getting less so these days mind.

Otherwise... Hao de.

I think that by West you made some assumption that all the West is the same.

Your description of mobile market in China (no free phones, no termination fees) is almost the same that the marked of Italy which is one of the most "advanced" mobile markets.

We Italians are the only one with more cellphones than population (CIA factbook docet), and not by little: 80M cellphones over 56M people, including little childs and elders.

Ireland has 4.11 million people, and 4.69 million mobile phones https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ei.html

Finland has more mobiles (5.76 million) than people (5.24 million)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/fi.html

The UK has more mobiles (69.66 million) than people (60.78 million)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html

And the CIA reckons that there's only 71.5 million mobile phones in Italy, not 80 million.