China Mobile to develop own-brand smartphones

CHINA Mobile plans to launch its own-brand smartphones and establish a mobile Internet firm as the country's biggest mobile carrier embraces an emerging mobile Internet age, the company's president Li Yue said today.

The carrier, with more than 700 million subscribers, hopes to introduce the latest iPhone into the mainland market but it still has a different business model from that of Apple Inc, Li said at the China Mobile Global Developers Conference 2012.

"We have the army (traditional telecom services). Now we need the navy and the air force (new mobile Internet services)," Li told the forum held in Guangzhou today.

China Mobile will integrate services such as mobile reading, music, video and the Internet of Things into the business of the new mobile Internet company, Li said.

Meanwhile, China Mobile will launch smartphones of its own brand in the future to provide customized services to its clients, Li said without giving a timetable.

Despite its huge client base, China Mobile is facing challenges from QQ and Weixin, instant message tools developed by Tencent which is eroding China Mobile's short message and voice message incomes, industry analysts said.

Mobile devices now account 13 percent of the world's Internet traffic, compared with 4 percent a year ago. The sales of mobile devices will soon surpass the sales of PC computers, according to Mary Meeker of the investment firm, Kleiner Perkins.

China Mobile has launched new tools for mobile payment and voice search, known as "China's Siri."

iFlyTek, 15 percent owned by China Mobile, provides a text-to-speech solution that allows a smartphone user to type in his native language when calling China Mobile's hotline or ordering a pizza.

China Mobile has had business cooperation with Apple Inc since 2007. "There is no problem in our cooperation. But both sides have differences regarding the business model and profit sharing," said Li.

Apple also has cooperation with China Unicom, a rival of China Mobile. China Unicom is scheduled to start selling the brand-new iPhone 5 next Friday.

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