Roaming charges in Hong Kong decreased after China Mobile Hong Kong launched a cross-border data sharing service, which will make it cheaper to access services locked behind Beijing’s internet firewall. China Mobile, the second operator to offer 4G services after CSL, will intensify competition among next generation mobile phone services in Hong Kong as subscribers to its 4G service can get cheaper access to news portals or social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which are banned on the mainland. Although existing roaming services can still overcome the firewall, users face steep charges. Many Hong Kong mobile users tend to switch off their data roaming option and use Wi-fi services offered by mainland operators. China Mobile has cut roaming charges on voice services between the mainland and Hong Kong to HKD0.65 per minute, from at least HKD7. The cut took effect on April 25, when the new 4G roaming service was launched. The company is targeting the 500,000 frequent travelers between Hong Kong and the mainland. It already claims more than 20% of the Hong Kong market. CSL and HTC launched the first 4G handset two months ago. CSL has yet to disclose the number of 4G subscribers but said total subscribers for all services stood at 3.16 million at the end of last year. China Mobile’s 4G monthly fees are similar to those under the 3G plan: HKD88 for 200 megabytes of downloads; HKD148 for 400 MB and HKD218 for unlimited data.

China Mobile’s profit rose 3.5% to CNY27.8 billion in the first quarter, lower than analysts’ expectations. The company will boost capital expenditure to CNY131.9 billion this year, from CNY128.5 billion last year, as it upgrades networks and rolls out more Wi-Fi hotspots to help maintain its lead in smartphone users over China Unicom (Hong Kong) and China Telecom. “They are facing more extensive competition, so China Mobile is going to have to try hard to maintain its profitability level,” said Jim Tang, Analyst at Shenyin Wanguo Securities in Shanghai. “Definitely going forward, their margins will be under pressure.” Sales rose 7.8% to CNY127.4 billion. In the first three months of this year, China Mobile said it added 17.6 million subscribers, for a total of 667.2 million. Profit margins in the first quarter fell to 21.8%, from 22.7% a year earlier, as the company faced “increasingly intensified competition”, China Mobile said. The operator had a total of 649.6 million mobile-phone subscribers at the end of last year, including 51.2 million 3G users. That outpaced China Unicom’s 199.7 million total subscribers and 40 million users of its 3G service. China Telecom was in third place with 126.5 million subscribers. Still, China Mobile’s share of all wireless users would drop to 64% this year from 69% in 2010, Barclays Capital Analyst Anand Ramachandran estimated last month. The company is counting on the move to a 4G network, based on TD-LTE technology, to stem a decline in market share among users who watch videos and play games on their phones.

China Unicom (Hong Kong) posted first-quarter profit that missed analysts’ estimates on weaker than expected subscriber growth in its third-generation service. The company said net income rose to CNY1 billion from a restated CNY145 million a year earlier. That compared with the CNY1.1 billion median of six analysts’ estimates in a survey. Unicom lost the advantage of being the only Chinese carrier to offer Apple’s iPhone with a service contract when China Telecom began sales of the device on March 9. Unicom added 8.84 million users to its 3G network in the first quarter, which Macquarie Analyst Lisa Soh called “a weak number”. Revenue rose 25% to CNY61.2 billion. Unicom had 48.9 million 3G subscribers at the end of last month. Its mobile customer base of 209.5 million was less than half that of China Mobile’s 667.2 million.

Wireless infrastructure spending by China’s three telecommunications network operators will top the USD11 billion mark in three years, driven by new 4G mobile investments. China Mobile is expected to lead that record capital outlay, according to a report by market research firm IHS iSuppli. The Hong Kong-listed carrier has spearheaded the adoption and testing of time-division long-term evolution (TD-LTE) technology, the high-speed 4G standard backed by China. The other recognized 4G standard, commercially deployed in other markets worldwide, is known as frequency division duplexing (FDD-LTE). The advanced 4G networks have theoretical internet download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, faster than what 3G networks provide. IHS iSuppli forecast total wireless infrastructure spending in China will reach USD11.2 billion in 2014, as operators ramp up 4G mobile investments. That would be a significant increase from the estimated USD10 billion next year and USD9.9 billion this year. Commercial trials of China Mobile’s pilot 4G network are expected to be completed this June, which may coincide with the possible release of a compatible iPhone from Apple. Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, told China Central Television (CCTV) last month it may take two to three years before 4G licenses are issued, because the government wanted first to double the number of TD-SCDMA base stations. China Mobile operates a TD-SCDMA 3G network with about 200,000 base stations, but most of its subscribers are still on its 2G network based on the GSM standard. The plan was to upgrade those TD-SCDMA base stations to TD-LTE within the next two to three years, according to Miao. China Mobile started offering its 4G data service to subscribers in Hong Kong this week, the South China Morning Post reports.

China Telecom started selling a version of Apple’s iPhone 4S compatible with its CDMA2000 network on March 16. China Telecom offers black and white versions of the iPhone 4S in 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB versions, some of which will be free under certain contracts. Users who sign a two-year contract at a monthly fee of CNY389 will get a 16 GB handset free of charge. Lower contract fees provide a competitive edge over China Unicom’s iPhone offers. A two-year contract for the 32 GB model only requires a monthly payment of CNY489, which is CNY97 less than the same offer from China Unicom. The speed offered by China Unicom’s 3G network is on average four times faster than that of China Telecom, said Xu Zhen, Telecommunications Specialist with d1net.com, an information technology portal. China Telecom said Apple’s iPhone will be good for its long-term development but might bring short-term profit pressure. Independent analyst Xiang Ligang said cooperation with Apple will not initially offer China Telecom short-term profits. “The carrier spends a lot of money on mobile phone subsidies, and the result is, at the moment, the more iPhones they sell, the more money they lose,” Xiang said. China Telecom spent CNY15.6 billion in 2011 on handset subsidies, up 29.1% from 2010, and sees no let-up for the moment. “The amount of money we’ll spend on mobile phone subsidies this year will not be less than last year,” Chief Financial Officer Wu Andi said, although mobile handset subsidies as a percentage of mobile service revenue will continue to fall, “if subsidies on iPhones aren’t included”. The figure has already declined to 22.9% in 2011 from 33.6% in 2009. The company has set 2012 capital expenditure at about CNY54 billion, up 9% from 49.6 billion in 2011, and 70% of the money is earmarked for upgrading broadband networks. China Telecom said 2011 profit rose 10.5% to CNY16.4 billion, as growing use of mobile phones offset a decline in its traditional fixed-line business. Revenue rose 11.7% to CNY245 billion.

China Mobile Communications Corp has confirmed its participation in an auction of Pakistan’s third-generation wireless spectrum. Pakistan has been the only overseas market for China Mobile since it bought Paktel, a loss-making Pakistani carrier, for USD284 million from Millicom International Cellular in 2007. The company was renamed China Mobile Pakistan (CMPak), and its services were rebranded as “Zong” in 2008. If successful, China Mobile will offer the 3G services on a WCDMA network, which is different from the TD-SCDMA technology it is using in China. The Zong brand has seen the largest net growth in mobile users in Pakistan in the past three years, according to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, although CMPak is only the fifth-largest of Pakistan’s six telecom operators. Zong had a user base of 13.2 million by October, rising from less than 1.5 million in 2007. Fan Yunjun, CEO of CMPak, said that China Mobile had invested USD1.5 billion in Pakistan so far. China Mobile is actively pushing for its homegrown 4G TD-LTE technology to be adopted worldwide. All three major Chinese operators have made tentative moves to expand overseas. In 2009, China Unicom (Hong Kong) agreed to a tie-up with the Spanish telecom company Telefonica, with each partner holding a stake in the other. This year, China Telecom plans to start selling a wireless service to consumers in the United States, and may even consider building or buying its own wireless network in the U.S., the China Daily reports.