Unicom invests 20b on GSM – and buys CDMA phones
China Unicom will invest at least 20bn yuan on its GSM network this year, says chairman Chang Xiaobing. He said the industry restructure will not drive down network investment, jinghua.cn website reported.
Chang said GSM network expansion has been the operator’s policy for the last two years, adding that Unicom would build “according to its requirements”.
He said although he had received no formal news about the planned carrier restructure, he believed the “fairly ideal” timing would be to issue 3G licenses and reshape the carrier sector some time this year.
In the wake of rumors two weeks ago claiming Unicom planned a 60 billion yuan share issue, he said the company had no plans to raise additional funds prior to the carrier reform and issue of 3G licenses.
Meanwhile, Unicom has underlined the uncertainty over the long-drawn merger process with the announcement that it has ordered 150,000 CDMA phones. Hong Kong-listed China Wireless said it had signed the order with Unicom for Coolpad 7360 smartphones on March 7. The deal is valued at 645,000 yuan.
Tags: 3G, CDMA, China-Unicom, GSM