China Mobile Launches New TarrifChina Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd, the Hong Kong-listed subsidiary of the country's dominant mobile telecom operator, has received approval from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) for its new tariff package, the company said Thursday.The company intends to introduce the scheme later this month, it said. Under the six-tier package, subscribers will be able to choose to pay as little as 98 yuan (US$11.8) for 170 minutes of basic service or opt to pay 788 yuan (US$95.2) for 2,588 minutes a month. Charges for additional use will range from 0.15 yuan (1.8 US cents) to 0.6 yuan (7.2 US cents) per minute. The group's existing services mainly consist of the "global access" contract service which includes a one-off connection fee, a monthly fee of 50 yuan (US$6) and a base usage charge of 0.4 yuan (5 US cents) per minute. Their other service is the pre-paid card service which does not involve a connection fee, or a monthly fee but charges a base usage charge of 0.6 yuan (7 US cents) per minute. "The introduction of a tariff package scheme in China is an important step forward in making China's telecom's tariffs more market-oriented," said Wang Xiaochu, chairman of China Mobile (HK). The new tariff scheme may lower its revenue per customer by about 8 to 27 per cent but volume is expected to pick up by 13 per cent as the lower rates attract more users, said Herbert Lau, director of research at Celestial Asia Securities. The average revenue per user rate may decline by about 16 per cent overall, leading to a projected drop in profits of about 7 to 8 per cent next year, he said. But some analysts say the move is a positive one for the company. "I think it will be positive for the company in terms of usage and unit revenue," said Mark Shuper, a Morgan Stanley telecoms analyst. Analysts said China Unicom, the country's second largest mobile telecom operator, is likely to follow suit with its own competitive pricing scheme. Source: China Daily |
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