BEIJING—China Unicom expects nine out of the 19 firms licensed to produce CDMA handsets to be able to start production by the end of this year and be able to ship 19 million phones next year.
Unicom hopes to recoup the investment in its CDMA network within seven years. Initially, the company will not offer prepaid services on its CDMA network and will not offer the 10-percent discount compared with rival China Mobile’s prices that it is permitted by the government to provide on its GSM network, China Daily’s Business Weekly reported.
China Unicom has started switching over 600,000 existing CDMA subscribers to its new network. They had signed up with Great Wall Telecom, originally a joint venture between China Telecom and the military, which was taken over by China Unicom.
Technical incompatibilities require its customers to buy new phones. Samsung and Motorola, which supplied the handsets for the Great Wall network, are working together with China Unicom to minimize inconveniences for the 600,000 subscribers. As a compensation for the necessity to purchase new handsets, Unicom offers 50 yuan (US$6) worth of free calls per month for the coming two and a half years.
