Opinion | China Mobile gets 4G edge, iPhone coming?
China Mobile could be the first of China's three telcos to get a 4G license, and could launch commercial service and an iPhone deal by year-end
Problems with China Mobile's 3G network, combined with lukewarm promotion, have caused it to loose steady market share to rivals China Unicom and China Telecom
If these latest reports are true, China Mobile could get an important edge of up to half a year over both Unicom and China Telecom in the 4G space. That's because China Mobile could probably offer commercial 4G service within a month of receiving its license, meaning it could offer such service by the end of this year. Unicom and China Telecom would presumably receive their licenses perhaps by December or in the first quarter of 2014. But they have been much slower in building their 4G networks, meaning they probably couldn't realistically offer commercial 4G service until the middle of 2014 at the earliest.
China Mobile's share of the 3G market now stands at about 40 per cent, far less than its 63 per cent share for the broader mobile market which also includes many 2G subscribers. If it gets a 4G license in October, I would expect the company to quickly drop its 3G promotions and aggressively boost 4G. That would allow it to quickly build up a subscriber base of 10 million or more users by the time Unicom and China Telecom began to offer rival services.
China Mobile is also very likely to push hard to finally reach a deal to offer the newest version of Apple's popular iPhone with its commercial 4G launch. The timing looks relatively good, since media are speculating the next iPhone 6 is likely to be released around the end of this year, or about the same time China Mobile would launch its 4G service. China Mobile is the only one of China's three telcos that doesn't offer iPhones for its network, and has been in talks with Apple for much of the last three years on a deal.