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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ramsey Su who wrote (25162)	8/1/2002 6:26:27 PM
From: Ramsey Su	Respond to of 197038

tech.sina.com.cn Wing Dong starts CDMA fare war. 20 cents (Chinese) per minute. (Wing Dong, as far as I know, is something like best buy or circuit city, not sure if it is just in Shanghai, in province or countrywide) August 1, 2002 This summer, CDMA markets were "diving" (meaning price reductions). First, it was Unicom's "buy handsets, get free minutes" promo. During the last two weeks, handset prices are below 1,000 yuan. Now the per minute charge has been reduced to 20 cents per minute. (official rate is supposed to be 40 cents. 20 cents was what Great Wall charged before) However, stirring the CDMA market this time is not Unicom, it is not the handset manufacturers, but rather the big retailer Shanghai Wing Dong. (I am pretty sure they are talking about the MOT handset here) Two weeks ago, Wing Dong reduced one style of CDMA handset to less than 800 yuan and immediately sold 38,000 handsets. At the same time, Wing Dong's price reduction forced this manufacturer to drop the price everywhere. This time, Wing Dong wants to further "stir" up CDMA "never endingly". Supposedly, Wing Dong purchased 10 million hours of talk time. Starting tomorrow, the first 2000 subscribers would enjoy half price rates for the first 3 years. This time Shanghai Unicom decided to risk this move is not only just for CDMA subs but high end subs. The Wing Dong promo is for a few styles of the high end handsets and far more than the 1000 yuan price. Unicom may also have no choice. When they first took over Great Wall, the old subs were paying 20 cents per minute but were raised to 40 cents. This of course was MII's standards but also Unicom's original plan to go after the high end users. However, the market was not there, forcing Unicom to return to the price war route. That is why they need the big retailers such as Wing Tong to stir up the CDMA market and attract subs.