China reaches 120m mobile net users mark in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: After the rolling out of 3G network nationwide by the three carriers, China added 120 million mobile internet users in 2009. 60.8% of the country’s total internet users comprised of 233 million mobile internet customers.
Besides, 30.7 million users in 2009 could access the internet only through mobile phones. The finding came after it was revealed by China Mobile that it wants to reach 50 million TD-SCDMA customers by the end of this year, 12 months earlier than planned.
The company has also preponed the rolling out of its network by end-2010, rather than end-2011. At the end of 2009, China had 10 million 3G customers.
China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA users reach 5.5m mark in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Mobile’s number of TD-SCDMA users reached 5.51 million in 2009. 87,000 TD-SCDMA base stations were deployed by the company, besides rolling out a further 70,000 this year.
266 TD-SCDMA handsets with handset and chip makers were also developed out of which eleven are already available.
Vice-President of China mobile fired for economic problems
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Mobile, one of the world’s biggest mobile carriers sacked its Vice- President for serious economic problems. Zhang Chunjiang, who was considered to be the public face of the corporate governance, faced this setback because of the increased transparency among some of the world’s largest companies.
According to the Hong Kong- listed entity a meeting will be called for deciding whether he is to be removed from his job as a vice-chairman of China Mobile. A state news agency informed that Chunjiang was also being investigated by the anti-graft body for suspicion of serious violation of discipline.
Zhang became a part of China Mobile in 2008 after Beijing revamped the telecommunications industry. Before that we worked as chairman of another carrier, China Necom Group considered to be a pioneer of corporate governance in China.
Zhang has so far been in the good books of many prominent people including former Goldman Sachs president who also worked with Zang in Netcom. Sachs had praised him for his efforts to balance the interest of the ruling party with those foreign minority shareholders in state corporations.
Zang is among the most high-ranking officials caught up in the Chinese crackdown on corruption.
Cheap Valuation & dividend highlight better year for China Mobile
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Cheaper valuation compared to its competitors, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. (CHU) and China Telecom Corp. (CHA), an attractive dividend yield and improving growth prospects with the launch of more third-generation value-added telecom services is highlighting a better year for China Mobile in 2010.
After the merger of China’s six telecom operators into 3 nationwide full-service operators in late 2008, after a government-mandated industry restructuring, the world’s biggest telecom operator by subscribers, has largely underperformed the broader market due to worries over rising competition. China Mobile’s shares fell 6.4% in 2009.
The stable cash flow and high dividend yield of China Mobile along with the expansion of its 3G handset devices including some low-cost CNY1, 000 phones and new value-added services are major selling points in an increasingly volatile market. According to analysts, other share price catalysts would be the company’s forthcoming mainland listing and the likelihood that China Mobile may raise its dividend payout ratio on lower capital spending.
Dell Mini 3 smartphone offered by AT&T
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: AT&T has joined the club of the mobile operators offering smartphone from Dell’s Mini 3 Android-based lineup. The handset is expected to be offered from the first half of 2010.
Smartphone arrangements has been established by Dell over the past two years with mobile operators including Vodafone in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, M1 and Starhub in Singapore, Maxis in Malaysia, China Mobile in China, and Claro in Brazil.
AT&T will announce further details about Dell’s Mini 3 closer to the device’s availability.
Vice-President of China mobile fired for economic problems
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Mobile, one of the world’s biggest mobile carriers sacked its Vice- President for serious economic problems. Zhang Chunjiang, who was considered to be the public face of the corporate governance, faced this setback because of the increased transparency among some of the world’s largest companies.
According to the Hong Kong- listed entity a meeting will be called for deciding whether he is to be removed from his job as a vice-chairman of China Mobile. A state news agency informed that Chunjiang was also being investigated by the anti-graft body for suspicion of serious violation of discipline.
Zhang became a part of China Mobile in 2008 after Beijing revamped the telecommunications industry. Before that we worked as chairman of another carrier, China Necom Group considered to be a pioneer of corporate governance in China.
Zhang has so far been in the good books of many prominent people including former Goldman Sachs president who also worked with Zang in Netcom. Sachs had praised him for his efforts to balance the interest of the ruling party with those foreign minority shareholders in state corporations.
Zang is among the most high-ranking officials caught up in the Chinese crackdown on corruption.
No plans to acquire Tencent, says China Mobile
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Mobile Ltd, the world’s largest mobile carrier by subscribers has denied any plans of acquiring Tecent Holdings Ltd. According to their spokesperson, Rainie Lei, the recent media reports on China Mobile talking with Tencent were groundless.
The statement was made after a local internet portal cited that China mobile’s delegation led by company’s president Wang Jianzhou visited Tencent headquarters and the two sides held a discussion over the potential acquisition.
Tencent was established a decade ago and it led China’s instant messaging market with its average daily users crossing 137.5 million, informed the official Xinhua Agency in November.
In 2006, China Mobile launched its own instant messaging service, Fetion, in order to attract more subscribers to increase its revenue.
The ranking of Fetion scored to number three among instant message programs after Tencent and Microsoft Corp.’s MSN by the end of September according to a report.
China Telecom mobile users rose to 3.07m
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an increase of 3.07 million in November 2009, China Telecom’s total mobile phone users’ number reached 52.99 million. In January, China Telecom’s newly-added mobile phone users reached 1.02 million, in October it topped 3 million, and in November it outpaced 3 million.
However, the number of local phone users, including fixed-line phone users and wireless local phone users decreased by 1.84 million to reach 191 million. The number of broadband users increased 690,000 in November and 8.57 million in total since 2009 to hit 52.84 million.
3G licenses were awarded to China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom at the beginning of this year by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Currently, China Telecom ranks first among the nation’s Big Three telecoms operators with a 3G user base of 4.81 million by October 31, 2009.
Zong, Alcatel-Lucent and RIM join hands to provide Blackberry solution in Pakistan
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Zong, the first international brand of China Mobile, launched its Blackberry solution in Pakistan, in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and Research In Motion (RIM). By using the Blackberry smartphones; wireless sending and receiving of emails, making phone calls, browsing Internet, sending text messages and accessing a wide range of corporate and lifestyle applications while on the move will become possible for the users.
BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Bold smartphones and a choice of BlackBerry Internet Service or BlackBerry Enterprise Server will be offered by Zong initially. ZONG’s postpaid packages will immediately provide the solution besides it will also provide a range of monthly packages tailored to meet customers’ needs.
According to Salman Wassay, Head of Marketing, ZONG, in order to have remote access to their email and calendar information, there was a huge demand for the solution by the subscribers in both the enterprise and consumer markets. BlackBerry Enterprise Server has been offered to corporate clients while individuals and smaller businesses are offered BlackBerry Internet Service.
RIM and China Mobile join hands to expand BlackBerry service
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Mobile and Research In Motion will expand the services of BlackBerry to smaller companies and individual users. This will allow RIM to boost use of the “smartphones” in the potentially huge market.
The co- operation between the two also includes the plans to support TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE technologies for BlackBerry devices used in China.
World’s biggest phone carrier by subscribers, China Mobile has been providing BlackBerry services in China since 2006 but the use was limited mainly to employees of a few major corporations.
RIM is also planning to use the national distribution network of Digital China to extend its reach inside the Chinese mainland. According to Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of RIM, extensive knowledge and market presence of Digital China will further expand the opportunity for RIM in China.
China Mobile was awarded the long-awaited Chinese-developed standard, TD-SCDMA from Chinese government early this year.
