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

To: foundation who wrote (30821)	1/7/2003 8:13:25 AM
From: foundation	Respond to of 197253

China Mobile discloses subsidies China Business Weekly January 07,2003 HONG KONG: In a bid to move existing high-end users up to a new generation of high-tech phones, China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd said last Friday it is subsidizing a limited number of handset sales. Disclosure of the programme came just weeks after China Mobile, the world's top mobile phone company by number of subscribers, criticized its chief rival China Unicom Ltd for using similar subsidies. Unicom's move was designed to meet subscriber targets for its year-old code division multiple access (CDMA) wireless phone service. Investors and analysts have expressed concern that the aggressive promotions could eventually eat into profits as both companies raced to sign up new users. Following China Mobile's criticism, Unicom said early this month that it was taking steps to discourage its vendors from offering the handset subsidies. China Mobile said earlier this year that it might use subsidies to sell 300,000 previously ordered handsets that are capable of handling its new high-speed data transmission service, which includes the taking and sending of photos. The company has moved ahead with those plans, and is now offering subsidies for the handsets in some or all of the 21 provinces where they are being sold, a China Mobile spokesman said. The spokesman said existing China Mobile subscribers can use bonus points they earn from their current consumption to help offset the price of a new general packet radio service/multimedia messaging service (GPRS/MMS) handset. He emphasized that the subsidies only apply to the 300,000 new handsets and, because of the way the programme is structured, only existing subscribers can take advantage of the discounts. The number of handsets open to subsidies is relatively small compared with the company's total subscriber base of about 115 million users, he said. The subsidized handsets offer GPRS, which is an interim step to third-generation mobile service. China Mobile launched the service on its network in May. Agencies via Xinhua www1.chinadaily.com.cn