China "Little Smart" Users Exceed 12 Million By End-2002
Friday January 24, 4:15 am ET
BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- The number of subscribers in China to the discount mobile phone service known as Xiaolingtong, or "Little Smart", grew by 7.8 million during 2002 to exceed 12 million by the end of the year, an industry executive said Friday.
The accelerating growth in Xiaolingtong highlights the challenge the low- priced and limited-mobility service poses to the standard mobile service offered by China's two mobile operators, the parents of China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd. (NYSE:CHL - News) and China Unicom Ltd. .
Furthermore, Xiaolingtong subscribers are expected to at least double this year to 25 million, said the executive, Hong Lu of UTStarcom Inc. (NasdaqNM:UTSI - News) , which makes equipment and handsets for the service.
Xiaolingtong is the Chinese brand name for the service, offered by China Netcom Group and China Telecom Group, the parent of China Telecom Corp. . The technology is known generically in other countries as a personal handyphone system, or PHS, while UTStarcom refers to it as PAS, which is the brand name of its product line.
Lucent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LU - News) of the U.S., and Shenzhen-based ZTE Corp. compete with UTStarcom in China's market for Xiaolingtong equipment, and also resell handsets for the service made by Japan's Kyocera Corp. .
Lu said UTStarcom had a market share of 60% in network equipment for Xiaolingtong, and 65% in handsets. Throughout China, 7.4 million Xiaolingtong subscribers are on UTStarcom network equipment, he said in a conference call.
biz.yahoo.com
==========
I believe the 12M number is expected to double in 03.
Foreign-manufactured Little Smart may work as a lever for Telecom and Netcom to obtain 3G licenses sooner rather than later. |
