China Mobile to scrap free trial
China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator, is going to cancel the one-month free trial that it forces value-added service providers to grant its customers, according to industry sources.
They said yesterday that China Mobile was expected within weeks to revoke the measure, imposed in July, because many users claimed they were being incorrectly billed.
Since then, the operator has adopted other steps mandated in July by the Ministry of Information Industry to prevent inaccurate charges, such as requiring value-added service providers to receive double confirmation of new subscriptions. China Mobile would not comment.
The value-added services such as ring tones and informative short messages, many provided by outside firms, have become China Mobile's growth driver, contributing 22 per cent of its first-half revenue, or 309 million yuan.
Value-added service providers, such as Tencent and Tom Online, complain that the free trial period has made it difficult for them to gain new customers. 'Some users used this measure to enjoy free services recurrently,' an industry source said. 'Once the free trial period ended, they cut the services and then resubscribed.'
Yesterday, Wang Lei-lei, chief executive of Tom Online, echoed the sentiment of the industry when he accused China Mobile of using the free trial to attract users to its Monternet value-added platform. 'The free trial policy is only a promotion for the operator,' Mr Wang said. 'It is the right time for it to fade out.'
Mr Wang said Tom's business had been hit by the new measure, but it still performed better than expected. The firm estimated that its third-quarter revenue to this month would fall about 35 per cent quarter on quarter to between US$32.5 million and US$ 34.5 million.
