Mobile phone software maker Sybase Inc is stepping up the pace of its mobile computing business in China as the country's 3G industry has started to blossom, a senior company executive said.

The company expects to maintain the 25-percent growth rate it achieved in the last two years in China this year also, said John Chen, chief executive of Sybase.

China has been the fastest-growing market for Sybase in the 38 countries and regions it operates in, he said.

"The 3G era will certainly see more diversified mobile applications, and there's a lot we can do here. It's very favorable for us," Chen said.

Sybase will focus on developing mobile computing business, such as databases, mobile middleware, and overall software infrastructure, in an attempt to take full advantage of mobile commerce, including mobile payment and banking.

"We think that the potential of mobile commerce will be much larger than e-commerce," Chen said.

China's mobile middleware and mobile database markets are relatively small, but their growth would be driven by the development of the country's mobile industry, said Liu Fei, analyst with research firm IDC.

"As mobile carriers further invest in applications and content, demand for mobile software is set to increase, and the pie of related markets will also be bigger," said Liu.

China is planning to invest up to $58.5 billion by 2011 to build 3G networks after 3G licenses were issued earlier this year. The 3G industry is also expected to generate 1 trillion yuan worth of demand in the next three years, according to officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Sybase has already started to cooperate with major industry players like Huawei and ZTE, and the three mobile carriers in China. It is now responsible for China Mobile's transnational messaging infrastructure, through which users can send text messages to 19 countries.

Company officials said they are in talks with the mobile carriers for new cooperation projects.

Database, business intelligence and mobile computing are the three major engines for Sybase sales.

The company recently won a bid for providing China Mobile database products, which the carrier used to source from Oracle, the world's second-largest software maker. But Oracle still takes up most of China's database market share, followed by IBM and Microsoft.