Rumor: China Mobile to Expand Data Centers by 2012
CWW, 11/08/10
China Mobile (NYSE: CHL; 0941.HK) will embark upon a three-year data center expansion plan during the second half of this year that will see data centers built in 7 provinces and municipalities. The centers will be built over the 2010-2012 period in locations including Beijing, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Inner Mongolia, and will to be used mainly to support enterprise data services and mobile internet services. Preliminary preparations have gotten underway in all the regions.
A Guangdong Mobile data division employee surnamed Zhang said that falling GPRS bandwidth fees and shrinking profit margins for mobile data services, as well as increasing data service user demand for cross-network access, had led to high costs for inter-network billing, leaving China Mobile's data services on the verge of losing money.
China Telecom's (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) IDC server rooms cover more than 500,000 square meters of floor space at present; China Unicom's (NYSE: CHU; 0762.HK; 600050.SH) IDC server rooms cover slightly less space, and China Mobile's cover only about 40,000 square meters.
Not long ago, China Mobile placed an announcement for an "international information port" data center project tender on its website. According to the announcement, the data center is planned to cover 65,000 square meters, and will have an initial investment of RMB 290 mln. The China Mobile employee said that the advertised project is a part of the operator's three-year plan.
Keywords: capex China Telecom China Mobile China Unicom mobile data investment wireless data center Internet data center CHL 0728.HK 0762.HK 0941.HK 600050.SH CHA CHU mobile Internet tariffs
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