Three rivals compete in mobile communications market
16/9/2004 9:26
Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news
The foray of the
'Little Smart" cordless services based on fixed-line networks has broken the
monopolies of China Mobile and China Unicom in the domestic mobile
communications market, the Shanghai Securities Times reported today.
By the
end of June this year, China Telecom reported 36.47 million Little Smart
subscribers, up 40 percent from the end of last year, with the services becoming
the main growth engine for the fixed-line operator.
Jiangsu Telecom, a
subsidiary of the China Telecom, registered more than five million subscribers
with its Little Smart services since April last year. There are more than one
million Little Smart subscribers in Beijing and Guangzhou. In Shanghai, where
such services were started in urban areas in May this year, there are more than
700,000 subscribers to date.
China Netcom also registered 17 million Little
Smart subscribers. Therefore, the total number of such users has hit more than
53 million across the nation.
Currently, Little Smart subscribers can enjoy
several value-added services, such as short messaging, Internet surfing, GPRS
and coloring-ring-back-tone-services. Testing of the interconnection between
Little Smart and China Mobile or China Unicom has been completed, with the
charging system still to be decided.
The total number of the subscribers is
expected to reach 70 million by the end of this year and to exceed 100 million
by late 2007.
China Satellite Communications Corp and China Railway
Communications Corp also plan to venture into the domestic mobile communications
market.
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