Apple plans to Sell iPhone 4 in China
Apple is planning to launch iPhone 4 in China and is also in discussions to open two new Chinese stores with its partner China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. this week amid growing competition from rival Smartphones. The device will attack the market on September 25. Official Apple stores will sell contract-free 16GB and 32GB models for US$743 and US$892. The company will add a store in Beijing and one in Shanghai on the same day.
According to Analysts International analyst Fang Li, the world’s biggest technology company by market value is expanding in China, which overtook Japan last quarter to become the second-biggest economy globally. Demand from Chinese consumers for the iPhone, which faces competition from Smartphones made by local vendors including Lenovo Group Ltd. and Huawei Technologies Co., has lagged behind expectations.
Fang explained that the iPhone is expensive compared with other devices in the market. There are many Smartphones that offer comparable features and performance, but are priced much less.
According to the company, U.S. consumers can buy the phone for US$299 with an AT&T Inc. contract.
In Beijing, a store will be opened in Xidan Joy City at the same time as the iPhone 4 goes on sale. In Shanghai the store will be opened in Hong Kong Plaza.
China telecom selects Alcatel Lucent as equipment provider
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Telecom has selected Alcatel-Lucent as the sole equipment provider for its CDMA/EV-DO Rev. B network at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The solution provided by Alcatel Lucent enables China Telecom to boost its mobile broadband network speeds by up to three times.
EV-DO Rev. B solution is a software upgrade that builds on operators’ existing CDMA base stations besides enabling a two- to three-fold improvement in the forward link peak data rates (6.2 Mbps for 2.5MHz and 9.3 Mbps for 3.75 MHz). It also improves the peak data rates for the reverse link proportionally.
According to Romano Valussi, president of Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell, the company continue to focus on operators’ investment protection and OPEX reduction strategies – refreshing older, embedded CDMA technology with “greener”, higher-capacity options that are positioned to integrate LTE and as a long-term partner of China Telecom, Alcatel-Lucent is committed to further improve China Telecom’s existing CDMA/EV-DO network – enabling its customer to offer state-of-the-art mobile broadband services building on their installed equipment.
LUXE City Guides launches mobile app
LUXE City Guides, the stylist pocket travel guides is all set to release its Mobile edition for iPhone and Blackberry along with handsets from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and HTC.
Priced at £5.99, the app comes with a year of free updates sent directly to the phone, plus a discount of 50% on the second year’s subscription. The app will cover 10 destinations initially including New York, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Shanghai, Singapore, Rome, Bali, Sydney, and Bangkok – with 20 more international destinations coming soon.
China Mobile confirms purchase of 20% stake in of Shanghai Pudong
China Mobile announced its entry into the share subscription agreement with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, through its wholly-owned subsidiary-China Mobile Group Guangdong Company Limited.
China Mobile is considered to be the world’s largest mobile operator in terms of number of subscribers. The company grabbed 2,207,511,410 A shares to be issued by SPD Bank by way of private placement, representing 20% of the issued shares of SPD Bank as enlarged by the subscription.
The selling price of each share was 18.3 RMB (about HK$ 20.50) which brought the total consideration for the subscription to 39.8 billion RMB (approximately HK$45.3 billion).
As a part of the deal, China Mobile has also entered into a strategic cooperation memorandum of understanding with SPD Bank (which will lead into a strategic cooperation agreement) to jointly work on development of mobile e-commerce services.
Google scraps unveiling event of Nexus One in Beijing
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A regional event to show software developers its first smartphone, the Nexus One in China has been scraped by Google.
An event introducing the sleek touchscreen phone to software developers in Hong Kong and Taiwan will be held next week, but Beijing will be excluded from the list. It is viewed as Google’s second move following the threatened pull-out from the China. Earlier, citing problems of censorship and a hacking attack, Google threatened to shut its Chinese Google.cn portal and pull back from China.
Shortly after that the launch of two mobile phones in China which use its Android platform were also delayed. Many staff at Google’s China operations is worried about their jobs due to the recent standoffs.
Google is currently looking to fill dozens of jobs, including sales, business development and research and development in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, according to a job post on its website.
China Telecom allowed by SARFT to expand IPTV trial
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: China Telecom has been allowed to apply for approval of an internet protocol television (IPTV) license to expand its IPTV trial by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SARFT). The IPTV currently covers 10 cities.
IPTV licenses have already been awarded to eight companies including China Central Television, Shanghai Media Group, People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency.
China Unicom end-July GSM mobile subscribers 101.37 mln vs 100.55 mln end-June
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) – China Unicom Ltd (HK 0762; NYSE CHU) said subscribers to its GSM mobile service rose to 101.37 mln at the end of July, from 100.55 mln at the end of June.
China Unicom said its postpaid GSM users increased by 3.24 mln in the first seven months of the year, with the number of prepaid users up by 3.05 mln.
Subscribers to its CDMA service totaled 34.78 mln, compared with 34.53 mln at the end of the previous month, the company said.
China Unicom said its postpaid CDMA subscribers rose by 1.92 mln in January-July, with prepaid users up by 137,000.
China Unicom, the country’s second-largest wireless carrier after China Mobile, has a 60.7 pct stake in Shanghai-listed unit China United Telecommunications Corp Ltd (SHA 600050).
Source- http://www.forbes.com
Technorati : CDMA, China Unicom
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