ZTE Wins China Unicom Contract to Provide High-Speed Access
April 14, 2011, 4:58 AM EDTBy Bloomberg News
(Updates with company responses in second paragraph, closing share prices in last paragraph.)
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- ZTE Corp., China’s second-largest maker of phone-network equipment, said it won a contract from China United Network Communications Group Co. to upgrade networks in seven cities to deliver high-speed mobile access.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed in an e-mailed statement from Shenzhen-based ZTE today. China United Network Communications, also known as Unicom, is the second-largest mobile-phone company in China and the parent of China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. Margrete Ma, a spokeswoman for ZTE, and Wen Baoqiu for Unicom both declined to comment on the value of the award.
China Unicom, which started offering its third-generation mobile service in October 2009, said last month it would improve networks in 56 cities this year to raise the speed at which users can download videos, games or music by 46 percent. The upgrade is to a technology called evolved high-speed packet access, or HSPA+.
Data download rates will increase to 21 megabits per second from 14.4 megabits previously with the upgrade, Unicom said last month. Unicom’s spending on its 3G network will rise by 24 percent to 19.5 billion yuan ($2.99 billion) this year, the company said at the time.
ZTE will provide the HSPA+ network upgrade in seven cities, including Changchun, Ningbo and Wuhan, the company said today, without disclosing the others.
ZTE’s shares dropped 2.5 percent to close at HK$27.80 in Hong Kong. China Unicom gained 0.1 percent to HK$14.78.
--Edmond Lococo in Beijing. Editors: Chua Kong Ho, Garry Smith.
To contact Bloomberg News staff on this story: Edmond Lococo in Beijing at elococo@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
