China Unicom, full name China United Telecommunications Corporation, 中国联通, is a telecommunication operator in the People's Republic of China. 52.6% of the company is effectively held by the state-owned China Unicom (BVI) Limited and China United Telecommunications Corporation Limited, while the remainder is traded on the Shenzhen, Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges.

China Unicom was founded as a state-owned corporation, established on July 19, 1994, by the then Ministry of Electronic Industry (now Ministry of Information Industry) and approved by the State Council.

Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a wide range of services including nationwide GSM and CDMA mobile networks, long-distance, local calling, data communication, Internet services and IP telephony in mainland China, and has operated a CDMA network in Macau since 18 October 2006. As of the end of April 2008, the company had 125 million GSM subscribers and 43 million CDMA subscribers.

Compared to other mobile providers China Unicom is ranked as the second-largest CDMA provider in the world and the third-biggest mobile provider.

On June 2 2008, China Unicom announced its intention to sell its CDMA business and assets to China Telecom for a combined total of 110 billion RMB and to merge the remainder of the company, in a share swap valued at USD $56.3 billion (based on Unicom's stock last traded price) on June 2, 2008, with China Netcom.

Source: Wikipedia

China Mobile Communications Corporation (Chinese: 中国移动通信, Hanyu Pinyin: Zhōngguó Yídòng Tōngxìn), also known as China Mobile or CMCC, is the largest mobile phone operator in China. It is the world's largest mobile phone operator ranked by number of subscribers, with over 380 million customers (as of end of February, 2008). By turnover it is second to Vodafone, which owns 3.3% of China Mobile. China Mobile is also fifth in global brand equity according to Brand rankings.

A state-owned enterprise of the People's Republic of China government, it was spun off from former monopoly China Telecom in 1997, and now has a 67.5% share of the competitive mainland Chinese mobile market. China Mobile also owns Paktel in Pakistan, and in May 2008 the company also took over China Tietong, the third largest broadband ISP in China.

China Mobile is the largest company registered in Hong Kong and it is headquartered on Queen's Road. It is also the largest market capital company listed in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, surpassing HSBC.

China Mobile's operations are segmented by province. The parent company owns 100 percent interest in provincial subsidiaries including China Mobile Group Guangdong Company Limited and China Mobile Group Zhejiang. As of December 31, 2006, the Group had an aggregate staff of 111,998 and an aggregate mobile telecommunications subscriber base of over 301.2 million, and enjoyed a market share of approximately 67.5 percent in Mainland China. The Group's GSM global roaming services covered 219 countries and regions and its GPRS roaming services covered 138 countries and regions.

China Mobile's majority shareholder is China Mobile (HK) Group Limited, which, as of December 31, 2006, indirectly held an equity interest of approximately 74.57 percent of the Company through a wholly-owned subsidiary, China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited. The remaining equity interest of approximately 25.43 per cent. of the Company was held by public investors. Speculations however, that the China Mobile (HK) Group Limited being subservient to other interests within China abound.

 

Services

China Mobile's services are stratified according to their target customers

• Go Tone (Chinese: 全球通, Hanyu Pinyin: Quánqiútōng) is the flagship brand. Its postpaid services target what China Mobile terms 'high class customers'. As its Chinese name implies, Go Tone enables international calling and global roaming.
• Easyown (Chinese: 神州行, Hanyu Pinyin: Shénzhōuxíng) is China Mobile's basic prepaid service and accounts for over 70% of China Mobile's customers. Marketing schemes vary between regions. In Shanghai, Easyown customers also have access to many Go Tone services such as global roaming and voice mail upon payment of additional fees. 
• M-zone targets the youth demographic. It is popular with university and college students but its popularity lags behind that of the other two brands in secondary and third-tier cities.
  

3G 

In April, 2008, China Mobile started testing of the third generation (3G) of mobile communication in eight cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Qinhuangdao, Shenyang and Xiamen), using the Chinese standard TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access). Very few test results, however, have been available publicly.

Source: Wikipedia