HONG KONG, Oct 17 (Reuters) - China Mobile Ltd. (0941.HK: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's top wireless carrier, is set to post a 27 percent rise in quarterly earnings as it consolidates its lead over rival China Unicom Ltd. (0762.HK: Quote, Profile, Research) ahead of the arrival of 3G services.
China is the world's largest telecommunications market, but after a period of rapid expansion mobile operators are now having to looking beyond the booming cities and towards new services for further growth.
"China Mobile is not only consolidating its dominant position in the mature coastal market, but gaining market share in the western hinterland through faster and better layout expansion than Unicom," said CSC Securities analyst Michael Chen.
Industry players have been hoping for three years that China would give the green light for high-speed third generation mobile networks, unleashing more than $10 billion in spending on equipment and jumpstarting growth in the maturing mobile market.
Beijing may unveil the results of trials of a homegrown 3G standard known as TD-SCDMA -- originally due for completion in June but delayed until October -- in coming months, with 3G licences possibly following in early 2007, analysts say.
Third generation services offer faster internet access and better multimedia services, which operators hope will open up new sources of revenue. But subscriber uptake in many markets has been patchy.
China Mobile (CHL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) should ring up net profit of 16.3 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) for the third quarter, versus 12.8 billion a year ago, according to calculations based on the average of four forecasts from analysts surveyed by Reuters.
Its 2006 net profit is forecast to hit HK$62.7 billion (64.6 billion yuan), according to 25 analyst
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