Beijing Mobile, the city's dominant carrier with 4.5 million users, has signed a contract with Finland Nokia to extend its network capacity to 10 million customers.

Under the contract, valued at over US$100 million, Nokia will supply most of the core equipment for Beijing Mobile's phase nine expansion. The Finland firm will remain as Beijing Mobile's only core-network vendor.

After the network expansion, Beijing Mobile will have the ability to support 10 million subscribers.

With more than 6 million users among a population of 12.5 million, Beijing has one of the highest mobile phone concentrations and a penetration rate nearing 50 percent.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry, at the end of September, China had 120 million mobile phone users -- nearly one-tenth of the country's 1.25 billion population.

Jiangxi Mobile, a sister company of Beijing Mobile, also signed contracts with Nokia worth US$20 million.

Nokia will help expand Jiangxi Mobile's network coverage to 90 percent of the villages and towns within the provincial range.

Nokia is one of the major winners in the rapidly growing Chinese market. It controls most of the market shares in China's mobile terminal sector. China is Nokia's second largest market after the United States. The Finland firm's investment in China has exceeded US$1.7 billion. Nokia has established more than 20 offices, eight joint ventures and one research center in China.

(China Daily November 8, 2001)