China Mobile touts 4G phones

China Mobile, the country's most active supporter of homegrown 4G TD-LTE technology, will for the first time exhibit at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the world's biggest trade show in the mobile industry, the company announced Monday, signaling the telecom titan's ambition to reclaim lost ground from its smaller rivals as China moves into the 4G era.

China Mobile is slated to showcase its latest TD-LTE push during its exhibitor debut at next week's MWC, Qiu Hong, an official with the carrier's department of market operation, told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

The debut came after China Mobile's recent moves to tout a faster 4G network at a time when the idea of 3G still remains something of a novelty for many Chinese users.

Not long after launching a dual-mode LTE network in Hong Kong in December, which couples the homegrown TD-LTE with the existing FDD-LTE technology, China Mobile announced commercial trials of TD-LTE networks in Hangzhou and Wenzhou at the beginning of February.

A few smartphone models that support TD-LTE will be unveiled by the carrier during the MWC, said Wang Hengjiang, deputy general manager of the terminal subsidiary of China Mobile.

The phones are likely to hit the shelves later this year, according to Wang.

This may especially help bump up market confidence in the commercial success of TD-LTE, as the lack of capable mobile devices has long been a concern hampering the technology's popularity.

"The TD-LTE standard is far more globally acknowledged then its predecessor TD-SCDMA­, and is expected to have a brighter outlook, which will undoubtedly give China Mobile a boost against competitors in the next-generation era," Joy Yang, Shanghai-based chief analyst of the carrier network infrastructure group at Gartner Inc, told the Global Times.

As of January, 29 telecom operators across the world have signed 45 TD-LTE commercial contracts and launched 64 TD-LTE trial networks, according to Qiu. A total of 14 TD-LTE networks have been rolled out commercially around the globe.

China Mobile's hegemony from the 2G era has gradually diminished as China Unicom and China Telecom, its two smaller rivals, have gained momentum in China's 3G race.

By the end of December, the number of users subscribing to China Mobile's 3G TD-SCDMA­ network totaled 87.93 million, while those subscribing to China Unicom and China Telecom's 3G networks stood at 76.46 million and 69.05 million respectively, according to their latest data, a reflection of the dwindling gap between the three telecom operators.

While China Mobile is unlikely to reclaim its previous levels of dominance after the country finally embraces the faster 4G networks, its edge over the other two carriers will definitely be strengthened, Yang remarked.

In stark contrast with China Mobile's 4G hype, China Unicom and China Telecom's 4G schemes remain low-profile.

But Yang downplays market speculation about an imminent issuance of 4G licenses in the country, noting that "the Chinese government is not likely to hand out 4G licenses before 2014, as it may be keen to avoid overlapping investment since the issuance of 3G licenses happened not long ago."