China Unicom, SK Telecom eye massive mobile phone

China Unicom and SK Telecom agreed to jointly buy millions of mobile phones betting the two companies’ increased purchasing power will reduce costs.

 

The two mobile phone operators are negotiating to buy mobile phones from Motorola, Samsung, and LG Electronics, Seoul-based SK Telecom said in a statement.

 

The mobile phones will be offered to both companies’ customers during the first half of next year, the statement said.

 

SK Telecom, the world’s first provider of third-generation mobile services, joins Spain’s Telefonica and the UK’s Vodafone Group in trying to access a market that has more mobile phone users than the combined populations of the US and Japan.

 

Beijing-based China Unicom will use the partnership to boost buying power and tap SK Telecom’s experience providing 3G service.

 

“This is pretty positive for China Unicom in the long-term; it means more purchasing power,” said Judy Zhang, an analyst at Sun Hung Kai Research in Hong Kong.

China Unicom and SK Telecom plan to initially buy six types of mobile phones, with orders for each model ranging from 300,000 to 500,000 mobile phones, according to the statement.

 

In July, SK Telecom, Korea’s largest cell phone operator, bought $1 billion of bonds convertible into a 6.7% stake of the Chinese company.

 

China’s number of mobile users is expected to rise to 568.1 million in 2010, according to US researcher IDC.

China had 437.5 million cell phone subscribers at the end of August, according to government data, compared with South Korea’s 38 million.

About 30% of China’s 1.3 billion people own mobile phones, compared with
South Korea’s 80%.

 

 

Source- http://www.telecomasia.net

China Unicom increases revenue by 8.2 percent in H1

China Unicom had an operating revenue up 8.2 percent to CNY 46.77 billion in the first half, including service revenue up 6.9 percent to CNY 44.74 billion, as the company added 7.29 million mobile subscribers in the period. Unicom had 135.09 million cellular customers at the end of June, having added 5.48 million GSM users and 1.81 million CDMA users in the first half. The company’s GSM operations made a CNY 3.75 billion pre-tax profit on a CNY 29.36 billion revenue. CDMA operations made a CNY 3.75 billion pre-tax profit on CNY 13.74 billion revenue. Unicom’s overall EBITDA rose to CNY 15.49 billion and its ‘overall profit’ was up 20.2 percent to CNY 2.8 billion. Its long-distance, data and internet businesses made a CNY 140 million pre-tax profit on a CNY 1.64 billion revenue. Company chairman and CEO Chang Xiaobing said Unicom would put equal focus on retaining existing GSM customers and adding new ones while making a greater effort to accelerate CDMA expansion. The company will also continue to restructure its long-distance, data and internet businesses’ product mix to enhance efficiency and increase revenues.

Source- http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?id=138934&nr=&type=&yr=