Market rivalry between China's two biggest mobile telecom carriers
is heating up with China Unicom's heavy promotion of its code
division multiple access (CDMA) business.
Unicom's marketing campaign started recently, inundating people
with CDMA advertisements in newspapers and on radio and
television.
It
is widely believed that Unicom is pushing hard to reach a target of
7 million CDMA users for the year and put further pressure on its
only rival, China Mobile.
Unicom Vice-President Shang Bain told China Daily that the number
of new users grows by more than 20,000 each day.
He
said the number of Unicom users surpassed 2 million people a
fortnight ago.
If
the growth continues for the rest of the year, Shang said the
target of 7 million people will be reached.
A
China
Mobile spokesperson refused to comment about CDMA's rapid
development in the country.
Under the strong market campaign, China Mobile customers are
considering switching to Unicom.
In
South China's Guangdong Province, the local branch of the
Agricultural Bank of China gives some of its credit card users free
CDMA phones, according to their credit record.
One of the strongest selling points for CDMA phones, especially for
young people, is the ring tone.
Beside first-time mobile phone users, many customers are
considering shifting from a global system for mobile communications
(GSM) phone to CDMA.
Some customers carry two mobile phones -a GSM phone supported by
China Mobile and a Unicom-supported CDMA phone - to stay in
touch.
One of those people is Yu Qing, a 28-year-old from Beijing.
"I
make a lot of calls on the mobile phone and I really care about the
phone's radiation on the human body," Yu said
Claimed to have lower electronic radiation, CDMA phones are
marketed by Unicom as "green phones".
The company hopes CDMA's voice quality and believed lower radiation
can bring it more customers.
But there is still no clear signs indicating that radiation from
GSM phones has an impact on health.
"Who knows," Yu said, "it is always good to be cautious."
If
the CDMA network coverage is similar to the GSM network, Yu said
she will move permanently to CDMA.
Unicom's CDMA network covers 330 cities in China and it is
expanding coverage and upgrading the network to a higher
generation.
China Mobile controls 70 per cent of the market and is anxious
about CDMA.
To
maintain its customers and attract new users, China Mobile launched
a promotion plan to give customers more benefits based on their
spending, including free mobile secretary services and free call
time.
Experts view competition between the two carriers as good news for
customers and the development of the industry.
"Customers will have more choices and mobile carriers will have to
upgrade service quality," said Yang Peifang, director of telecom
policy centre at the Chinese Academy of Telecom Research.
But industry insiders also expressed concerns about Unicom's
services, which support about 40 million users.
(China
Daily September 3, 2002)