News and Research on China Mobile Limited (CHL)
Business Description
China Mobile Limited offers mobile telecommunications services principally using the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard. The company’s GSM networks reach all cities and counties and major roads and highways throughout Mainland China and, through the network of Peoples, a substantial part of Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited.
The company provides a range of mobile telecommunications services in all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and directly-administered municipalities in Mainland China as well as in Hong Kong. As of April 30, 2007, the company’s total number of subscribers included approximately 321.4 million.
Businesses
The company’s businesses primarily consist of voice business and value-added business.
Voice Business: The company’s voice business refers to the business where its subscribers make and receive calls with a mobile phone at any point within the coverage area of its mobile telecommunications networks. The services include local calls, domestic long distance calls, international long distance calls, intra-provincial roaming, inter-provincial roaming and international roaming.
Value-added Business: The company’s value-added business includes voice value-added services, short message services, or SMS, and non-SMS data business. Its voice value-added services mainly include caller identity display, caller restrictions, call waiting, call forwarding, call holding, voice mail, conference calls and others. The company’s SMS mainly includes subscriber-to-subscriber messages, ‘Monternet’-based short messages and others.
The company’s non-SMS data business mainly includes ‘Color Ring’, wireless application protocol, or WAP, multimedia messaging service, or MMS, ‘Java Applications’ services, instant messaging, or IM, Mobile Music, Mobile Mailbox, Mobile Blog, Mobile Paper, Mobile Search and ‘Location-Based Services’.
SMS: SMS refers to services which employ the existing resources of GSM networks and the corresponding functions of mobile telecommunications terminals to deliver and receive text messages, including subscriber-to-subscriber messages, ‘Monternet’-based short messages and others.
‘Color Ring’: Color Ring refers to the service where subscribers can customize the answer ring tone from a selection of songs, melodies, sound effects or voice recordings to replace the monotonous ring connecting tone that the caller would hear.
WAP services: WAP is a technology that allows users to access information instantly via handheld wireless devices such as mobile phones. Subscribers of WAP services are able to access the Internet via the micro-browsers on their handheld wireless devices.
MMS: MMS is a technology that allows users to exchange multimedia communications, such as graphics, animated color pictures, sound files and short text messages, over wireless networks.
Instant Messaging: IM enables mobile services subscribers to communicate instantly through various means, including SMS, for chatting, dating or interactive entertainment.
Mobile Music: Mobile Music refers to a service that provides music services to subscribers through mobile telecommunications networks. In 2006, the company strengthened cooperation with the music media to stimulate and direct customers to try out, use and get accustomed to mobile music products based on ‘Color Ring’, ‘IVR for Mobile Music’ and ‘Ringtone Download’.
Mobile Paper: Mobile Paper is a business that the company has developed in cooperation with mainstream media in Mainland China and elsewhere, which provides customers with updated information services (including contents such as news, sports, entertainment, cultural activities and lifestyle) through MMS, WAP and other types of service. The company’s value-added business also includes Mobile Mailbox, Mobile Blog and Mobile Search, which enable subscribers to access the Internet through their wireless telephone handsets.
The company, in addition, provides wireless Internet access by utilizing general packet radio service, or GPRS, and wireless local area network, or WLAN, technologies to access WAP websites and Internet websites. It provides WLAN services at ‘hot spots’, such as airports, hotels, conference and exhibition centers and office buildings, within certain major cities in Mainland China.
Roaming
The company provides roaming services to subscribers, which allow them to access its mobile telecommunications services while they are physically outside of their registered service area or in the coverage areas of other mobile telecommunications networks in other countries and regions with which the company has roaming arrangements. As of December 31, 2006, the company’s GSM global roaming services covered 219 countries and regions, while its GPRS global roaming services coverage was extended to 138 countries and regions.
Strategic Alliances
Strategic Alliance with Vodafone
The company has a strategic alliance agreement with Vodafone, which provides for various cooperation arrangements between the company and Vodafone, including: the exchange and sharing of corporate management, technical and operational know-how and resources; joint research and development; the introduction of global products and services for the mobile community; and the development and implementation of standards and protocols relevant to mobile telecommunications.
Strategic Alliance Agreement with Phoenix
The company, as of June 8, 2006, entered into a strategic alliance agreement with Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings Limited, or Phoenix, a satellite television operator broadcasting into Mainland China, pursuant to which the company and Phoenix would cooperate in the joint development, marketing and delivery of wireless content, products, services and applications.
Competition
The company’s competitors include China Telecom, China Netcom, and China Unicom.
History
China Mobile Limited, formerly known as China Telecom (Hong Kong) Limited, was founded in 1997. The company changed its name to China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited in 2000 and to China Mobile Limited in 2006.
