China’s telecoms giants march to the beat of national service
Three major network operators make sweeping tariff cuts from Friday, a month ahead of planned
Mainland China’s vast telecommunications market will witness sweeping tariff cuts from Friday as the three biggest network operators answer the government’s call to lower costs for consumers and businesses for the third consecutive year.
The move comes a month ahead of schedule, following the call made by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in early March for the telecommunications industry to speed up the pace of network performance upgrades and tariff reductions.
All three telecommunications network operators announced September 1 as their implementation date, which represented both a show of support to the government and a way to foster goodwill with consumers
“All three telecommunications network operators announced September 1 as their implementation date at their [respective interim] earnings announcement, which represented both a show of support to the government and a way to foster goodwill with consumers,” said Edison Lee, an equity analyst at Jefferies.
That, apparently, does not mean the operators are above burnishing their credentials for national service in the world’s second-biggest economy.
“Earlier this year, the three said they would try to accelerate implementation ahead of the October 1 start date,” Lee said. “So they made themselves look good by pushing the timetable forward by a month.”
Still, credit will go to China Mobile, Unicom and China Telecom for keeping in step with the government’s goals amid stiff industry competition in both the mobile and fixed-line markets.
The Premier introduced his ambitious “raise speed, drop prices” initiative in 2015.