Telecom service provider China Mobile, which is yet to finalize the much-hyped Apple deal, is planning to sell 100 million 4G LTE smartphones in 2014.
China Mobile will offer commercial 4G telecom services in 340 Chinese cities next year.
Xi Guohua, chairman of China Mobile, said the company will build 500,000 4G base stations across China in 2014.
China Mobile is targeting sales of 190 million to 220 million mobile handsets running on its wireless networks by 2014, with 100 million of those handsets running on its Time-Division Long-term evolution (TD LTE) 4G network.
“China Mobile’s marketing focus next year is in handset sales, since mobile units are the foundation for mobile Internet development,” Xi said during an event in China.
Xi predicted that the total number of TD-LTE mobile phone models will pass 200 and entry-level 4G smartphones will hit the market in 2014. 50 percent of those 4G mobiles distributed by China Mobile will be non-contract-based.
HTC may become one of the beneficiaries of China Mobile’s 4G roll outs.
In a research note, KGI Securities Investment Trust said that China Mobile and HTC are set to launch four to six models in 2014 to get a bigger slice of China’s booming smartphone market. KGI forecast that HTC’s overall smartphone shipments could exceed 20 million units in 2014.
On Wednesday, China Mobile chairman, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, said the company is still negotiating with Apple to launch iPhones on their telecom network.
China Mobile earlier posted an advertisement for 4G TD LTE services on its webpage that featured Apple’s iPhone 5s.
The partnership between Apple and China Mobile on 4G LTE services will increase iPhone shipments by 12 million units in 2014, according to a forecast by U.S. brokerage Morgan Stanley.
The projection of 12 million iPhones to be sold via China Mobile is based on an estimate of 195 million high-end smartphones to be shipped in China in 2014, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty said in a research note.
A deal with China Mobile could be worth billions of dollars in revenue for Apple. As many as 759 million potential new China Mobile customers could gain access to iPhones, generating up to $3 billion in extra revenue in 2014, equivalent to nearly a quarter of Apple’s projected revenue growth in its current fiscal year. But after an expected initial surge, Apple would likely find itself back in a battle with its main smartphone rival, Samsung, NYTimes reported.
China Mobile has already signed supplier agreements with Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NSN, Huawei, ZTE, etc to source LTE equipments. China Mobile’s 4G networks will enable Asia Pacific to become the leading region in 4G.
