China Mobile Limited
(
CHL
) - the largest telecom operator in the world by subscribers
remains optimistic on its previous set target of deploying home
grown 4G-LTE technology across 100 cities in China by the
year-end and also well supported by 200,000 base stations.
Moreover, it has also set an annual target to sell LTE-based
devices to more than 1 million people in the country.
The telecom giant plans to sell at least 120 million handsets
based on TD-SCDMA standard by the end of the third quarter of
2013 and consequently aims to release TD-SCMDA devices under its
own brand.
China Mobile uses 2.6 GHz spectrum band to deploy TD-LTE
technology, which is quite effective in densely populated areas
as it supports huge data traffic as compared to 700 MHz band
spectrum, which supports better coverage and is very popular for
4G LTE deployment in U.S. Unlike 3G technology which has limited
option, as it supports only four frequency bands for deployment
while 4G LTE supports 20 bands of spectrum on which it can be
deployed.
China Mobile, which covers more than half of the Chinese
mobile market, has so far been successful in penetrating only 13%
of its huge subscriber base with 3G customers, while
China Unicom Ltd
(
CHU
) and
China Telecom Corp.
(
CHA
) have 33% and 44% of 3G customer concentration respectively.
Such a moderate 3G subscriber growth is mainly due to an
unique home grown standard followed by China Mobile called
TD-SCDMA technology, which is not consistently accepted around
the globe and not well supported by most smartphone
manufacturers. Even
Apple Inc.
's (
AAPL
) iPhones are not well supported on that technology, which
happens to be a major drawback, as it is offered by the other two
carriers.
To retain its market traction, China Mobile is setting such
ambitious goals of launching its own new TD-SCDMA based devices
by the end of the third quarter of 2013 rather than depending on
some other device manufacturers and simultaneously rolling out
its unique TD-LTE technology across different cities in
China.
Currently, China Mobile has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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