New | Massive telecoms asset injection planned for China's Big Three network operators

Nearly a million network towers on the mainland are expected to be injected into a state-owned telecommunications infrastructure-sharing joint venture, allowing China’s three major network operators to book an estimated 148 billion yuan (HK$187.59 billion) one-time gains in total from the bold government-led asset injection.

It is a milestone development that analysts expect to spur continued growth in the world's second-largest telecommunications services market behind the United States, despite concerns about economic slowdown on the mainland.

In July last year China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom together formed the new joint venture called China Communications Facilities Services Corp -- renamed as China Tower Company last September -- to handle the construction, maintenance and operation of telecommunications network towers and certain auxiliary infrastructure across the country.

Although the central government has not announced exactly how the asset-infusion plan for the venture would be accomplished, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the mainland’s top telecoms industry regulator, as well the three operators are working on an August 15 deadline "for some corporate action involving the tower company", analysts at Barclays said in a research note.

"We are taking the view that all ground-based towers of all three operators are to be injected into the tower company at one go," said Anand Ramachandran, the report's lead author and head of Barclays' telecommunications, internet and media equity research for Asia, excluding Japan.

"We estimate the number of towers at 999,000 among the three telecommunications network operators as of the end of last year."