SmarTone to become merger winner over abundant cash

Telecom Authority announced the regulations for bidding for 3G licenses last week, indicating that it would only issue four licenses and in the first phase and would not issue new licenses before 2005. As there were six mobile phones service providers in Hong Kong, the merging actions among these companies were unavoidable. Among the six mobile phones companies, the chances for PCCW (0008), Hutchison Whampoa (0013) and SmarTone Telecommunications (0315) to obtain the licenses were quite high, while as the rest three companies were comparatively small and their forecasts were unsteady, they might become the merged targets. For the time being, as the users number of SmarTone Telecommunications was only inferior to that of Hutchison Whampoa and it had over HK$3 bln cash in hand, the company was expected to seek for merging chances after the results of bidding 3G licenses was released so as to enlarge its market share.

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