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The Chinese markets for mobile phones and personal computers are likely to grow larger than those in Japan in value for the first time this year.

After the hardware, the value of the Chinese market will also go beyond Japan's for servers, storage and contents for mobile handsets by 2010, according to a study by Nomura Research Institute.

The Chinese mobile phone market is expected to be worth 1.832 trillion yen (US$16.8 billion) this year, up from 1.759 trillion yen in 2004, Nomura said Tuesday.

The figures compared with 1.823 trillion yen projected for Japan this year and 1.776 trillion yen last year, Nomura said.

The Chinese mobile phone and PC markets have already surpassed those in Japan in terms of the numbers of units sold.

But on an individual level, Japanese Internet and mobile phone consumers spend as much as 10 times more than their Chinese counterparts, the report said.

The expansion of the Chinese IT market is likely to continue as its domestic consumer base grows and local firms offer inexpensive IT services to foreign firms, Nomura said.

"The Chinese IT market affects not only the Japanese IT industry, but also deeply affects the global business world," Nomura said.

China last year became Japan's biggest trading partner, with Japanese firms drawn to its vast pool of cheap labor and its emerging middle-class market.