Telecoms Counters Underperform HSI; SmarTone Dives 7.5%, Sunday Down 5%
Aug 20, 2001 - 12:08:50 HKT
Quamnet News Service
SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings Ltd. (0315) and Sunday Communications Ltd. (0866) joined their heavyweight peers to underperform the benchmark Hang Seng Index which was down 2.72 percent at 11,434.86, hurt by China Mobile (Hong Kong) (0941) which fell for the third day amid its disappointing interim results and the 3.3-percent fall in the Nasdaq market last Friday.
At 11:52 a.m. local time, SmarTone shares were down 7.5 percent at HK$8.65. Turnover was HK$12.7 million, almost 80 percent of its total last Friday. Sunday was 5 percent lower at 38 HK cents, near its 52-week low of 37.5 HK cents. Turnover was HK$225,030.
Performance in local telecoms shares has been dull over the month amid the recent plunges in European peers. Local telecoms mostly accelerated their falls over the past few days after China Mobile reported at midday Thursday that interim results which were at lower end of market expectation. The dominant Chinese mobile phone company has already lost 16.2 percent over the past two days.
China Unicom Ltd. (0762), the nation's second-largest mobile phone operator, was also hard hit by falling 5.5 percent.
Hutchison Whampoa (0013) were down 2.5 percent to HK$68 ahead of its interim results announcement this Thursday.
Pacific Century CyberWorks (0008), Richard Li's Asian communications vehicle, fell 3 percent to HK$1.91, having already celebrated its first anniversary of merger with C&W HKT, the once dominant local fixed line phone company
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