China Telecom Group, the parent company of listed China Telecom (0728.HK; CHA.NYSE), will reform the structure of CDMA business to be acquired from China Unicom, and establish a new department to deal with the business related to CDMA handsets and a terminal company to increase the investment in terminal customization and procurement, according to China Business News.
An industrial expert says that the development of CDMA network was not smooth over the past two years, high price and limited variety of terminals were still protuberant problems, and China Telecom would have to break the bottleneck to compete with China Mobile (0941.HK; CHL.NYSE) and China Unicom (0762.HK; CHU.NYSE) after the industrial reshuffle.

Besides, China Telecom Group may incorporate the CDMA terminal business department into its listing unit to reduce costs and decision period.

The company has set up its target to double the number of CDMA subscribers in 2009 and make it exceed 100 million, which means an additional 50 million handsets would be needed, and China Telecom's terminal company will become the biggest purchaser and distributor for mobile phones in China.

Source:Xinhua