[September 10, 2009] China Mobile Said to Focus on TD-SCDMA Mobile Phone in H2 Tweet BEIJING, Sep 09, 2009 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) -- China Mobile Limited (SEHK: 0941 and NYSE: CHL), one of the Big Three integrated telecom operators in the country, is looking to shift its focus from netbook to TD-SCDMA network-based mobile phone to capitalize on the market boom. At an internal conference held lately, the Beijing-headquartered company made a decision to adjust its business strategy in the second half of the year, focusing on TD-SCDMA mobile phone promotion instead of netbook marketing, disclosed a source familiar with the matter on September 9. The telecom operator will provide subsidy for TD-SCDMA mobile phone buyers as its first step, said the source, noting that the subsidy set aside for 2G mobile phones has been relocated to market 3G devices across the country. China Mobile is improving the high-speed TD-SCDMA network, which can complete 95%-plus of the switches between 2G and 3G services successfully, pointed out Wang Jianzhou, chairman and chief executive officer for the New York- and Hong Kong-listed company. The China Mobile network, based on the country's homegrown 3G technology TD-SCDMA, is on its way to maturity, with 60% upgraded. The company is about to spend as much as CNY 6 billion subsidizing TD-SCDMA mobile phone users this year, most of which to be used in the second half of the year, said Mr. Wang at an earlier interview. China Mobile took out around CNY 5.16 billion to subsidize mobile phone buyers in the first six months of 2009, said Xue Taohai, deputy general manager and financial director for the company, on August 20, capping the total mobile phone subsidy expenses at CNY 12.2 billion for the entire year. Market observers, on the other hand, described such a fine-tune in business strategy as the telecom operator's major effort to court for mobile phone makers. China Mobile expects more mobile phone makers to jump into the TD-SCDMA camp in the future, explained a market observer. In a bid to lure partners, the company launched an Ophone platform previously. Currently, most of the customizing CDMA mobile phones and TD-SCDMA mobile phones are made by the same group of companies. 348 models of mobile phones are expected to come into the market in China this year, of which 15% or 52 will be based on the TD-SCDMA network and 59% or 240 based on the WCDMA network, according to statistics by a consulting firm in Beijing. (USD 1 = CNY 6.83) Source: www.hexun.com (September 09, 2009) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]