China United Network Communications Group Co., trailing in the nation’s market for high-speed wireless customers, cut the minimum monthly fee for its third- generation service by more than half to attract more users.
Subscribers can now sign up for the 3G service for as low as 46 yuan ($6.9) a month, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on its website. The previous minimum fee was 96 yuan, Wen Baoqiu, a spokesman for Unicom, said by telephone today.
Even with an exclusive arrangement for offering Apple Inc.’s iPhone in China, Unicom has been unable to match larger rival China Mobile Communications Corp. in the addition of users to the high-speed, 3G networks that allow smartphones to surf the Internet and download music. China Mobile in October added 1.7 million 3G subscribers compared with Unicom’s 1.1 million, according to data the companies released last month.
“The new 3G tariff packages greatly reduce the consumption threshold, while adding more minutes of local calls, and more flexible billing,” Unicom said in the statement.
At the end of October, China mobile had 17 million 3G customers, while China Unicom had 11.7 million.
China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., the group’s Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed unit, fell 1.1 percent to HK$10.62 at 11:53 a.m. local time.