The China Unicom group principally provides telecommunication services in the mainland, including those for mobile phone, paging, long-distance, data and the Internet. The company made its debut on Hong Kong's main board in June 2000. From its listing until July 30 last year, it outperformed arch rival China Mobile. For that period, the share prices of the two players were down 21 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. According to a report released nearly a year ago, Core Pacific-Yamaichi described China Unicom as a rising star and placed an accumulate recommendation on the firm's stock. The finance house expected China Unicom's glamorous performance in relation to its rival to be sustained in the coming years. 'The market capitalisation of China Mobile is 3.7 times that of China Unicom. Should 1 per cent of the shareholders of China Mobile switch their . . . holdings to China Unicom, that would translate into a purchase of a 3.7 per cent stake in China Unicom,' it said. Graphic: NOW08gwz
