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China, the world's largest wireless market, will spend $6.2 billion on wireless infrastructure equipment in 2009, up 13.2 percent from $5.5 billion in 2008.

In contrast, global carrier spending will decline by 3.5 percent in 2009 to $39.7 billion, down from $41.1 billion in 2008.

"China's wireless operators in 2009 are set make multi-billion dollar infrastructure capital expenditures to support their roll outs of 3G networks," said Jagdish Rebello, an analyst for iSuppli. "These companies are moving aggressively on their 3G rollouts in order to they try to capture market share in the potentially lucrative domestic market for mobile-data services."

In May last year, China's government announced plans to award three 3G licenses as part of a major restructuring plan. Under this plan, the government created three telecom carriers -- China Mobile, China Netcom (GSM) and China Unicom/Telecom -- paving the way for the rise in the nation's infrastructure spending in 2009.

China Mobile announced plans to invest $8.6 billion into 3G in 2009.

China Unicom and China Telecom will get their official 3G licenses in the first quarter of 2009, and China Unicom will launch its W-CDMA services in the second half of 2009.

China Telecom has already started to secure quotes from equipment suppliers for the build-out of its 3G network. The company will invest a significant portion of its capital spending on the networking core in addition to base stations, gateways and switching centers.

The global contraction in wireless infrastructure spending primarily will be driven by carriers in the developed nations, slowing down the pace of their investments in data-centric 3G/3.5G technologies.

"In an uncertain macroeconomic environment and amid reduced customer spending, carriers in the developed nations will be cautious on their capital expenditures as they seek to maintain a positive cash flow in 2009," Rebello said. "In the emerging markets of India, South Asia, and Africa, carriers will continue to invest in expanding the coverage of their voice-centric 2G/2.5G networks in the face of strong subscriber growth in these parts of the world."

ISuppli estimated that global carrier spending on wireless infrastructure equipment will remain essentially flat in 2010, before rebounding with 4 percent growth in 2011.