皇冠体育app

(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-19 10:02

皇冠体育app will soon allow its fixed-line telecom operators to venture into the faster-growing mobile market, Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday, citing a senior official.

"The rapid development of mobile telecom services had lured away subscribers of fixed-line services," Xi Guohua, vice minister of information industry, was cited as saying.

The government will grant fixed-line operators licences for mobile telecom services "at an early date," Xi was quoted telling a telecom forum in Beijing.

This is likely to be good news for the nation's two major state-controlled fixed-line operators, 皇冠体育app Telecom and 皇冠体育app Netcom, who are seeing slow growth in their subscriber base.

Unconfirmed reports have suggested that state-owned mobile carrier 皇冠体育app Unicom could be split up between 皇冠体育app Telecom and 皇冠体育app Netcom.

The number of mobile phone users in 皇冠体育app reached 523.3 million at the end of September, up 13.5 percent from late 2006, according to ministry of information industry data.

The number of fixed-line users in 皇冠体育app was at 371.7 million, a rise of 1.1 percent from late last year.