It has made significant business progress in the United States. China Telecom Americas, the largest international subsidiary of China Telecom, launched its self-branded mobile services toward the retail market in Chicago at the beginning of this year.
The new service targets frequent business travelers, long-term visitors and students. Donald Tan, president of China Telecom Americas, said the service will be promoted in Los Angeles and New York soon.
If the service does well, China Telecom might consider "building or buying its own network" in the United States, Bloomberg quoted Tan as saying.
However, analysts warned that US government opposition may thwart this ambition.
"Given the failure of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp in their attempts to gain a foothold in the US market, I am not optimistic that China Telecom, a truly State-owned Chinese company, will do any better," said Xiang Ligang, a Beijing-based telecommunications expert who also runs the industry information website cctime.com.
Chinese telecommunications companies have long been willing to go global and have made several attempts to meet this goal.
China Mobile Ltd, the world's biggest telecom carrier with 698.5 million subscribers, bought a money-losing Pakistani carrier in 2007 and then offered service to local customers under the new brand Zong.
Wang Jianzhou, the former chairman of China Mobile, said in a March interview that China Mobile intends to expand its operations to a greater number of emerging markets, and it is also seeking opportunities to "become a minority shareholder in telecom carriers in the European or North American markets".
China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd and Telefonica SA, the biggest telecom company in Spain, agreed to buy stocks in each other and hoped to keep a long-term partnership.
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