Bidding for China’s CDMA network to close
April 13, 2001
BEIJING—Bidding to expand the CDMA network of Unicom
Horizon Communications, a subsidiary of the China Unicom
Group, the only Chinese operator licensed to offer CDMA
services, will close soon. The names of the successful bidders
are expected to be announced in the coming days. Four foreign
and eight Chinese companies are competing for parts of the 70
billion yuan (US$8.47 billion) project, which will take three years
to build and have a capacity of 50 million users.
The following companies are participating in the bidding:
Zhongxing, Huawei, Guangdong Nortel, Jinpeng, Hangzhou
Motorola, Orient Communications, Shanghai Bell, Datang,
Nanjing Ericsson Panda, Capitel, Yulong and Qingdao Lucent.
Korea’s Samsung has teamed with one of the Chinese suppliers.
Wang Yingpei, president of Unicom Horizon Communications,
confirmed that the listed subsidiary of China Unicom Group
would buy part of Horizon’s equity once the network is fully
operational. The company plans to attract 13.3 million CDMA
subscribers in 300 cities this year and increase the number by
10 million a year starting in 2002.
China Unicom also plans the listing of A shares for Chinese
investors on the stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen to
raise 50 billion yuan (US$6 billion) to finance construction of the
network.
Call charges on the CDMA network will be less than half of
those charged on the GSM network, which has more than 95
million users.
rcrnews.com |
