Competition Fills HK Telecom with Vitality

Despite the cooling weather in Hong Kong, local telephone market competition has become increasingly fierce. Major telephone dealers in Hong Kong recently introduced new preferential plans of long-distance phone calls one after another. Long-distance call to the inland becomes the main target of the price war.

Hong Kong's telecommunication has gradually quickened its opening pace in recent years. Hong Kong SAR has taken back the right of monopoly sales from Hong Kong Telecom ahead of schedule and, on January 1, 1999, introduced the competitive mechanism into the external telephone service market which had long been the exclusive dealer. Presently, there are 165 firms engaging in external telecom services in Hong Kong.

Companies of different sizes have tried every possible means to win over consumers at varying social strata. The division and reorganization of the market is unavoidable and the contest is raging. First, there has been the scramble for customers, followed by a "price-cut war". The charge on long-distance calls has been reduced to a startling range, and the area involved in the price-cut is extending.

It is the consumers that benefit the most from the opening and competition of the telecom market. The government of Hong Kong SAR has estimated that in 1999 alone, the consumers saved about HK$ 2.5 billion in external telecom services.

Hong Kong's telecom market is becoming more mature and popular. External telecom services have entered a broader space for further development. Currently, Hong Kong's direct international telephone users can directly dial to 232 countries and over 2200 Chinese counties and cities. The latest statistics provided by Hong Kong Telecom Administration show that the total communication time of international long-distance phone calls in June was 411 million minutes. The number of long-distance calls surged by 10 to 20 percent over the same period last year, thus putting Hong Kong's external telecommunication volume in the second place in Asia, second only to Japan.



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