CRI听力:3G-New Selling Point for Telecommunication Industry

Statistics from China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom indicate that SMS messages giving wishes and greetings maintained their record high during the Spring Festival period.

Wei Lihong is the general manager of China Mobile's network department.

"During the Lunar New Year's Eve, SMS volume was 4.5 times as much as our SMS volume in normal times. In the busiest hour, which is 7 to 8 pm of Lunar New Year's Eve, the SMS volume was 8 times as much as the rest of our daily SMS volume."

Wang Feng is vice manager of China Telecome's marketing department.

"SMS volume in China Telecom rose by about 22 percent during the Spring Festival. Multimedia Messaging Services or MMS rose by 1.36 times."

According to China Unicom, from the Lunar New Year's eve, to 6th of the lunar New Year, SMS volume rose by 22.7 percent compare to the same period last year.

However, the three telecommunication companies admit that the SMS volume growth speed is slowing down despite the record high SMS volume. A new active force entering the market is the mobile internet service, such as Weibo.

Li Kai is the operation manager of Sina's Weibo service.

"At the first second of the Lunar New Year, 32 thousand individual items of original New Year greetings on Weibo were publicized on our platform. The figure is 3 times as much as at the end of last year."

Figures from Tencent's Weibo service show that at around 12 am on the Lunar Year's Eve was the rush hour of the sending New Year greeting Weibo. Several million Weibo messages were publicized, and if the ones which forwards and comments are counted the figure may be dozens of million.

To meet the new market trend, the telecommunication companies have adjusted their marketing strategy, diverting the focus to the new mobile internet service.

At the same time, fast growing mobile internet services are boosting the smartphone market.

The General manager of a smartphone company, Liu Yang says, their sales volume has seen a record high.

"During the 7 day Spring Festival Holiday, more than 150 thousand of our brand smartphone were sold. The volume rose by 100 percent compare to the same period last year."

Insiders point out that, giving customers attractive telephone fee in return when they buy smartphone bound to their services has become the new selling point of the telecommunication business. Wang Feng says:

"Our cellphone sales rose 3 times compared to last year. Our smartphone sales reached 17 million, a ten fold increase. 3G service and 3G smartphone has created enormous business opportunities for we operators. I believe the trend may continue its good performance in 2012."

For CRI, I am Li Dong.