After China Telecom and China Unicom exchanged their presidents, rumor of merger of the two giants has spread in the air.
Wang Xiaochu, president of China Unicom, denied the merger, claiming it was purely a rumor.
China Telecom and China Mobile also denied the merger rumor recently. Yang Jie, president and CEO of China Telecom indicated at the shareholder meeting that it shared resources with China Unicom smoothly and the two has co-constructed 10,000 4G base stations over two months ago which must at least have doubled now. He emphasized that the two operators just cooperated but not merged. And the Chinese government hasn't ever discussed with China Telecom about the merger.
Li Yue, CEO of China Mobile responded on the rumor at the shareholders' meeting that there was no sign of the merger between China Telecom and China Unicom. He added that the competition was reasonable in China's telecom market.