China Telecom was forced to halt Asia's biggest initial public offering of the year on Thursday after international investors cold-shouldered the issue, sources close to the deal said.
Bankers involved in the sale said the offer, which had aimed to raise up to $28.4 billion, would be relaunched early next week.
The failure of the deal to attract sufficient buyers - despite a string of sweeteners put forward in recent weeks - is a blow to China's programme of seeking overseas capital to help finance restructuring of its state-owned industries.
The mainland fixed-line telecoms giant launched its offer amid weak stock market conditions and poor investor sentiment towards telecom companies globally.
China Telecom closed its Hong Kong offering on Wednesday and had been due to fix the price of its shares on Thursday.
The delay comes after a controversial decision by the Ministry of Information Industry to allow China Telecom to increase connection fees on international direct dialling calls by 8.5 times.