The Coming 4G Revolution in China
When it comes to the global telecoms sector, the "holy grail" has to be the vast number of consumers in China.
It will be important to the future of not only the Chinese telecommunications companies, but also to the future
fortunes of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Nokia ADR (NYSE: NOK) who are battling bothSamsung and local
rivals for the hearts of Chinese consumers.
Apple recently "disappointed" some Wall Street analysts with their sales figures from China. Revenues dipped
by 28 percent in the third quarter to $5.7 billion from $7.9 billion in the second quarter. That was due to the
launch of Apple's iPhone 4s on the networks of China Unicom ADR (NYSE: CHU) and China Telecom ADR
(NYSE: CHA), which cannot occur every quarter. But it's all relative. In the latest quarter, Apple still managed
to show a 100 percent increase in the sales of iPhones in mainland China for the third quarter.
However, there is hope for China Mobile's long-suffering shareholders. The company is moving forward with
plans for its 4G network. This home-grown standard, TD-LTE, is already backed by Softbank and others
globally. And importantly, in addition to domestic phone makers such as ZTE, it is working with Apple on an
iPhone that will work on this standard. So China Mobile is moving forward with a strategy to lay down a vast
network (200,000) of next-generation 4G base stations across China by next year.
More at: beta.fool.com
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