Asia - Europe Business

China Unicom To Purchase Nitel For HK$19.5B

China Unicom received approval from the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, for its HK$19.5 billion purchase plan of the local telecommunications enterprise, Nitel.

China Unicom will purchase Nitel through the New Generation Consortium, which includes the Dubai Minerva Group and the Nigerian Gicell Wireless.

Nigeria has the largest population in Africa, but only half have mobile phones, thereby providing tremendous growth potential.

Lisa

 

China Mobile H1 Net Profit Up 4.2%

 

China Mobile recorded a 4.2 percent year-on-year increase in first half net profit to 57.64 billion yuan.

Operating revenue in the same period rose 7.9 percent year-on-year to 229.82 billion yuan, of which revenue from value-added services accounted for 29.5 percent.

The Mobile Market, China Mobile's mobile application store launched in August, 2009, had 50,000 subscribers as of end June.

The number of users of China Mobile’s voice services increased by 31.76 million in the first half of the year to total 554 million.

In the first half of the year, the minutes of usage (MOU) and average revenue per user (ARPU) of China Mobile reached 520 minutes and 72 yuan per month.

The company had 505,000 global system for mobile communications (GSM) base stations and 10.46 million 3G users as of end June.

In addition, a total of 115,000 TD-SCDMA base stations have been put into operations, covering 238 cities in China.

Lisa

China Telecom to Launch Digital Reading Platform

 

China Telecom plans to launch its digital reading platform in late August in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. The service is already accessible to the company's mobile users through its CTWAP service but is unavailable on personal computers or mobile services from other carriers. The company is trying to secure more partners to develop content for the platform. The company partnered with the country's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) on digital publishing in late July.

Another telecom giant China Mobile launched its mobile reading business in early May.

Lisa

China Telecom To Start Commercial Launch of IPV6

 

China Telecom's commercial launch of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) has been scheduled for the second half of the year.

China Telecom upgraded the Changsha Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), enabling it pass the IPv6 tests.

The datas collected from these tests will be good references for the operation of the IPv6 in the second half of the year.

Lisa

Google China Recruits

 

Google China has posted recruitment advertisements on the country's two major web portals Sina.com.cn and 163.com for a total 26 openings in its seven departments including its R&D, products, sales and operation departments. Positions include lead software engineers, product managers and sales mangers and all position are based in Beijing and Shanghai, according to Google's company recruitment page.

Maybe new business operation soon?

Lisa

What Do You Think About It? Your Opinion...

 
 

Market Share Of Low-End Mobiles Drop 20%

 

The market share of low-end mobile phones priced at under 1,000 yuan in the domestic market declined from 71 percent at end 2008 to 51 percent at end 2009, reported by the China Academy of Telecommunications Research under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The market share of high-end mobile phones priced above 3,000 yuan, rose from four percent in 2008 to five percent in 2009.

The market share of mid range mobile phones priced at between 1,000 yuan and 3,000 yuan, jumped from 25 percent in 2008 to 44 percent in 2009.

According to the report, the domestic mobile phone production volume rose 10.7 percent year-on-year to 620 million units in 2009, accounting for 49.9 percent of global mobile phone production. 

Sales of mobile phones in China in 2009 increased 16 percent year-on-year to 279 million units, rebounding from a situation of negative sales growth in 2008.

Shares of China United Network Communications (600050) fell 0.55 percent to trade at 5.45 yuan at 14:38 pm today.

Lisa

Google Promised to Obey Law: MIIT

 

Chinese authorities renewed Google's internet license after it promised to obey censorship laws.

In the Chinese government’s first public remarks since the renewnal of Google's license two weeks ago, Zhang Feng, director of the MIITcommunications development department, said the search firm had also vowed not to link to material deemed a threat to national security or social stability. 

Google announced in January it would no longer censor Chinese search results and in March began switching search queries directly to its Hong Kong servers.

Just before its internet content provider (ICP) license expired on June 30, it stopped sending searches directly to Hong Kong and instead introduced a landing page.

Speaking at a department press conference, Zhang said Google's “rectification and reform” – apparently referring to the change in practice - had conformed with government regulations.

China accounts for $250 million to $600 million of Google's forecast $28 billion.

Lisa

China Mobile to Start Building Optical Network

 

China Mobile is planning to build optical networks for next generation broadband services.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, China Mobile will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s fiber-based solutions in 14 provinces. In addition, the company will supply the related optical network units as well as integration and maintenance services to China Mobile.

China Mobile plans to develop its passive optical network (PON) over three phases.

In the first phase, China Mobile will focus on GPON and EPON to supply users with 2M broadband in the next one to two years.

In the second phase, it will gradually introduce 10G PON and UniPON technologies to provide 20M to 50M broadband access to users in the next three to five years.

In the third phase, it will rollout 10G PON on a big scale to provide users with 100M broadband access after a five-year period.

China Mobile announced in March that five companies won bids for its PON for 2010. They include Huawei, ZTE Corporation, Fiberhome, Ericsson and Alcatel Shanghai Bell.

In addition, Alcatel-Lucent disclosed that China Telecom plans to deploy its fiber-based solutions in 18 provinces.

Lisa

GAPP, China Telecom Link Up On Digital Publishing

 

China Telecom signed a framework agreement on publishing digital media with the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP). China Telecom will provide internet technology and other services to GAPP and affiliated media and publishing organizations in order to facilitate the circulation of digital publications through handset, computer and e-reader network channels. The company will also provide digital publishing platforms, technical support and system maintenance. In return, GAPP will support China Telecom's development of a digital reading platform in Zhejiang as well as encourage its affiliates to partner with the company.

Lisa