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CHINA Mobile Ltd., the world’s largest phone company, will spend more on subsidies next year as it tries to boost smartphone sales by as much as 42 percent and lure customers to its new high-speed service.
China Mobile plans to sell as many as 220 million smartphones next year, compared with 155 million this year, chairman Xi Guohua said yesterday in Guangzhou, according to remarks posted on the carrier’s official microblog account.
The comments contained no details about the subsidy amounts or the status of talks with Apple to offer the iPhone.
Handset subsidies will expand next year from the 27 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) spent this year, Xi said, as the carrier seeks to push more of its 759 million subscribers to higher-priced voice and data plans on the faster network.
China Mobile signed agreements with handset manufacturers including Lenovo Group Ltd. and Xiaomi Corp. for devices that operate on the fourth-generation (4G) network, according to Xinhua.
“This 4G service creates a new future,” chief executive officer Li Yue said in Guangzhou. “It will promote the popularization of a variety of application innovations.”
China Mobile received regulatory approval Dec. 4 to start commercial service on the world’s largest 4G network. The service will be marketed under the name “And,” Li said.
Li didn’t mention talks with Apple in his remarks, and the Xinhua report didn’t list Apple among the handset makers producing 4G devices.
Apple is close to agreeing to a distribution deal with China Mobile, a person with knowledge of the matter said in September. The carrier said in 2011 that Apple, which doesn’t make a handset compatible with China Mobile’s 3G network, agreed to make an iPhone for its customers once it shifted to 4G.
China Mobile handset sales next year will include 100 million 4G TD-LTE devices, Xi said.
The carrier last week began offering smartphone discounts of as much as US$919 on popular handsets such as Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy Note II to lure users. (SD-Agencies)
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