The mobile phone market in China has helped cater to the over 1 billion people living in China. The mobile phone coverage is reasonable and can be used on any GSM compatible phone. GSM phones are capable of being used in over 190 different countries. In fact Chinese GSM SIM cards, which are essentially the brain of the phone, can be put into a North American GSM phone in order to use it on the Chinese network. Generally there are great deals on phones and service in China, but the phone market in China and Hong Kong are rampant with knock-offs, so it’s a great idea to purchase a cell phone for China while still at home.

What may shock you is that some cell phone services in China can cost as much as 4 dollars per minute. This is why you want to shop around and find the best plan for your money. Getting an alternatives plan such as one that Chinese people use when traveling to North America can really help cur your costs. It is possible to get competitive rates on a cell phone for China, such as $1.75 a minute for incoming calls and $1.50 for national calls. If you’re calling the United States or Canada you can expect to pay around $2.95 per minute. Text messaging and data rates are often much higher on Chinese plans than in other countries. Data can be as much as 14 cents for every 10 Kilobytes, whereas texting can be around 80 cents per text message.

Cell phone service is definitely more expensive in China. But, think of all the benefits of having a cell phone. Getting lost is not going to be an issue as long as you have a cell phone on you. Keep in mind that if you have Chinese friends you can use your cell phone to have them ask questions for you if you’re not well versed in the language. Consider that you may not be able to tell your taxi driver where you want to go, but if you have a fluent friend that can help make your trip considerably easier through the simple use of a cell phone in China.

If you shop around you may be able to even find a cell phone plan with unlimited incoming calls. It will help you to know that most of China has pretty good cell phone coverage. Of course there are still some rural areas that don’t get the best of coverage, so make sure you know if your cell phone plan is going to have any roaming charges attached to it. It is a good idea to see if your phone is capable of taking another SIM card. This is another consideration to make for anyone in the market for a new phone that plans on traveling in the future. If you can simply replace your card with a new one you can pick up a prepaid cell phone SIM card for which ever country you plan on visiting.