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Mobile Phone Giant Looks to Invest US$10b in Chinese Market
NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile-phone company, recently said that it hopes to invest more than US$10 billion in exploring the Chinese cellphone market.
DoCoMo plans to introduce its i-mode cellphone Internet access services jointly with Chinese cellphone manufacturers using wireless application protocol (WAP) and other technologies.
Since China Unicom Ltd. is currently using the same code division multiple access (CDMA) network used by DoCoMo, the latter may adopt 3G wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) technology, and China Unicom could potentially partner up with DoCoMo, the Aug. 1 Yue Gang Xinxi Ribao (GD-HK Information Daily) reported.
DoCoMo had invested in KPN in the Netherlands and US-based AT&T, but their stock prices dropped by 86 percent and 37 percent, respectively, in the past year. The heavy losses in the European and US markets have forced DoCoMo to try to enter the Asian market, the article noted.
Furthermore, with China's impending World Trade Organization entry and its telecommunications market subsequently being gradually opened up to the outside world, DoCoMo's interest in investing in China has peaked.
Currently, the company's investment in Asia is only 100 billion yen (US$812.32 million), far less than its total investment in the European and US markets, which amount to 1.8 trillion yen (US$14.62 billion). High-ranking officials from DoCoMo said that the company's investment in Asia would be increased to the same level as that in the European and US markets.
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