China Mobile will decrease its Capex (capital spending) plan by 6.46 percent to $32.17 billion or CNY 199.7 billion for 2015.
The development will be a big blow to telecom network vendors such as Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, Nokia Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, etc.
Infonetics Research, a part of IHS, said this week that Nokia Networks has overtaken Ericsson as the #1 LTE infrastructure vendor in Q4 2014. However, Ericsson leads the 4G LTE infrastructure space in 2014, while Nokia Networks is in the second spot and Huawei in the third position.
Recently, Bharti Airtel and China Mobile announced their decision to source some of the 4G telecom networks together to cut down price.
China Mobile said its Capex for 4G network roll outs will dip 10.42 percent to $11.63 billion or CNY 72.2 billion. The dip in budget for 4G infrastructure is because China Mobile has completed a large TD-LTE network in China. Setting up of FDD-LTE network will not cost much due to technological compatibilities with TD-LTE.
China Mobile has also slashed its 2015 budget for subsidized contract-bundled handsets by 28.2 percent to CNY 18.8 billion, a local website indicated, according to local media reports.
China Mobile said its 2014 revenues grew to CNY 641.4 billion, EBITDA fell 2.1 percent to CNY 235.3 billion and net profit dipped 10.2 percent to CNY 109.3 billion.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
