Shareholders have given final approval to a merger of phone companies China Unicom Ltd. and China Netcom Corp. in a government-mandated industry restructuring, the companies announced Thursday.
China is trying to boost competition in its telecommunications market by rearranging its carriers into three groups, each with mobile and fixed-line assets: China Mobile Ltd., China Telecom Ltd. and the merged Unicom-Netcom company.
Netcom brings a fixed-line network to this deal, while Unicom will supply mobile service. Earlier Unicom shareholders approved a separate plan to sell one of the company's mobile networks to China Telecom.
The booming popularity of mobile service in China has left fixed-line carriers struggling to attract customers, while China Mobile has grown to be the world's biggest phone company by number of subscribers.
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http://www.chinaunicom.com.hk
http://www.china-netcom.com
