BEIJING-In China’s biggest corporate debt sale, China Mobile issued 8 billion yuan (US$968 million) worth of fixed-rate bonds, divided into a 5 billion yuan (US$605 million) 15-year tranche and a 3 billion yuan (US$363 million) five-year tranche.
The company is offering lower interest rates than most foreign mobile carriers because Chinese banks only offer an annual interest rate of 2.79 percent on five-year fixed deposits.
The proceeds will be partly used to pay for the acquisition by listed China Mobile of eight networks from its parent company in July.
In related news, China Mobile announced the commercial launch of its multimedia messaging services (MMS).
This month, NEC started shipments to China of its camera-equipped handsets. The company hopes to sell 1 million handsets in China in the next business year from April 2003 to March 2004 and 3 million handsets the subsequent year.
