China’s three largest mobile operators are in discussions to potentially set up a joint tower company in the country.
In separate announcements, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom all said the planned joint venture would allow them to…
China’s three largest mobile operators are in discussions to potentially set up a joint tower company in the country.
In separate announcements, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom all said the planned joint venture would allow them to enhance the sharing of resources while lowering construction and operating costs.
The three state-owned companies however stressed that no agreement has been reached yet.
Commenting on the potential partnership, Nomura analyst Leping Huang noted that unlike other Asian countries such as India and Indonesia, China does not have an independent tower company.
This is because of “complicated interest adjustments among the three operators (such as different preferences on network rollout plan and tower site)”, he said.
If it goes through the JV, which would allow the operators to lower capex, would help accelerate China Unicom’s and China Telecom’s 4G network rollout, Huang said.
He also expects the towerco to be positive for telecoms vendors “as it could push the operators to allocate a higher proportion of capex to telecom equipment”.
China Mobile is the world’s largest operator in terms of subscribers with over 775 million customers. China Unicom and China Telecom respectively have 285 million and 185 million subscribers.