Let me share some of my limited knowledge in China. I left
China in 1997 and have since resided in Singapore. Still I think
I am better informed than most of the people in this list.

If the better-off USA hobbyists are feeling that US$35
are high entrance fee to pay to go into dsPIC or higher-end PIC18F,
the Chinese hobbyists should feel it to be even higher since
the average GDP is about only US$1200 and even the "rich"
east coast cities like Shanghai and Beijing are only about
US$5000. Some of them complained the high costs and so all
those cheap clones got followers. 

However I still see a lot of students buying these kits and 
even US$200 ARM9 kits (to run ucLinux and uCosII) in China 
because they see the potentials.

With 3.5 million college and university students graduated (I guess
more than 50% of them are engineering students) every year, the
job market is so competitive that the students are eager to learn.
English and IT are the top areas they spend money on. For engineering
students, MCU/DSP/FPGA are some hot areas as well.

MCU forums are hot in China and Microchip is sponsoring the PIC 
forum in 21ICBBS (http://www.21ic.com). Not suprisingly, the Philips 
LPC distributors sponsor the LPC ARM sections and another one
is sponsoring the 51 section. So I guess there is some difference.

I guess the situation is similar in India.

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Ravi [mailto:chiptech@vsnl.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 2:14 PM
To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
Subject: [PIC] PICmicro tools for hobbyists {was: [PIC] dsPIC for
hobbyists)

I would like to mention the growth of PICmicro in India due to the
availability of low cost development tools.
...

If affordable compilers/programmers/debuggers and offcourse reprogrammable
devices are made available, then the usage and sales of the devices will
automatically grow.

Cheers
Ravi Pailoor
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