TOP 5 CELL PHONE PROVIDERS (ASIA)

NTT Docomo, Inc is Japan’s foremost mobile phone operator. The company’s name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, “Do communications over the mobile network,” while also stemming from the Japanese compound word dokomo meaning “everywhere.” NTT DoCoMo provides phone, video phone (FOMA and some PHS), i-mode (internet), and mail (i-mode mail, Short Mail, and SMS) services. The company has its headquarters in the Sanno Park Tower, Nagatachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo.

NTT DoCoMo was a spin-off from Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in August 1991 to take over mobile cellular operations. It provides 2G mova PDC cellular services on the 800 MHz band, and 3G FOMA W-CDMA services on the 2 GHz (UMTS2100), 800 MHz (UMTS800), and 1700 MHz (UMTS1700) bands. Its businesses also included PHS (Paldio), paging, and satellite. NTT DoCoMo ceased offering general PHS service on 7 January 2008.

China Mobile provides mobile voice and multimedia services in the People’s Republic of China through a nationwide mobile telecommunications network that is the largest of its kind in the world. It is also the most valuable mobile telecommunications company in the world and a state-owned enterprise, and is listed on both the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

By 2010 China Mobile had over 570 million customers, one of the world’s largest mobile phone subscriber bases.

China Mobile is a state-owned enterprise that is directly controlled by the Chinese government; it is also a public company. Since inception the company has dominated mobile services in China, controlling the bulk of its domestic mobile services market by 2010, with about 70 % market share. China Unicom and China Telecom each hold a respective market share of 20 % and 10 %.

Incorporated in 2000, China Mobile arose from the mobile phone division of China Telecom after its 1999 break-up.

China Unicom Ltd or China United Netcom (Hong Kong) Ltd is a tele­communications operator in the People’s Republic of China.

China Unicom Ltd effectively holds 40.92 % of the company, with China Netcom Group Ltd holding 29.49 % while the remainder is traded on the Shanghai, Hong Kong, and New York stock exchanges. Both majority shareholders are state-controlled enterprises.

China Unicom was founded as a government-owned corporation, established on 19 July 1994 by China’s Ministry of Information Industry and approved by the State Council.

Conceived as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a wide range of services, including a nationwide GSM mobile network; long-distance and local calling; data communication; internet services; and IP telephony in mainland China, and has operated a CDMA network in Macao since 18 October 2006. As of November 2008 CDMA operations have been transferred to China Telecom. UMTS was launched in major cities across China on 17 May 2009.

Compared to other mobile providers China Unicom ranks as the world’s third largest. In July 2009 China Unicom signed a US$700 million deal to upgrade the company’s GSM network with infrastructure vendor Ericsson.

Bharti Airtel Ltd, or simply Airtel, is an Indian telecommunications company operating in 19 countries across South Asia, Africa, and the Channel Islands. It runs a GSM network in each country, providing 2G or 3G services depending on the area of operation. In October 2010 Airtel was the fifth largest telecom operator in the world, with over 200 million subscribers. It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with over 143 million subscribers on 30 September 2010. Airtel is the third largest in-country mobile operator by subscriber base behind China Mobile and China Unicom. It has a 29 % market share of the GSM mobile service in India.

Airtel also offers landline services and broadband internet access services in over 96 cities in India. It provides its telecom services under the Airtel brand and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal. The company was the first Indian telecom service provider to become Cisco Gold certified. To earn such certification, Bharti Airtel had to meet the rigorous standards for networking competency, service, support, and customer satisfaction imposed by Cisco Systems, Inc. Airtel also operates as a carrier for national and international long-distance communication services. The company has a submarine cable landing station at Chennai for the submarine link between Chennai and Singapore.

Airtel is recognized as being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource everything except marketing, sales, and finance. Its entire network (base stations, microwave links, etc.) is maintained by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Network, and Huawei. Business support is by IBM, and transmission towers are from Bharti Infratel Ltd.

The company is divided into four strategic business units: mobile, telemedia, enterprise, and digital TV. The telemedia business unit provides broadband, IPTV, and telephone services in 89 Indian cities. The digital TV unit provides direct-to-home TV services throughout India. The enterprise unit offers end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers, and national and international long-distance services to telecommunications carriers.

The Bharti Group was founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal. In 1983, Sunil Mittal reached an agreement with Germany’s Siemens to manufacture the latter’s push-button telephone models for the Indian market. In 1986, Sunil Bharti Mittal incorporated Bharti Telecom Ltd (BTL) and his company became the first in India to offer push-button telephones, laying down the foundation for Bharti Enterprises. This lead enabled Sunil Mittal to then extend manufacturing capacity to other areas of the telecommunications market. By the early 1990s, Sunil Mittal had also introduced the country’s first fax machines and cordless telephones. Sunil Mittal won a bid in 1992 to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. Sunil Mittal incorporated the cellular operations as Bharti Tele-Ventures in 1995 and launched service in Delhi. Cellular service was extended to Himachal Pradesh in 1996. Bharti Enterprises went public in 2002 and was listed on the Mumbai Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003 cellular phone operations were re-branded under the sole brand Airtel. Bharti acquired control of Hexacom in 2004 and commenced operations in Rajasthan. In 2005, Bharti expanded its network to include Andaman and Nicobar.

In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network by extending its activities to Sri Lanka. In 2010 Airtel began operating in Bangladesh and 16 African countries.

Airtel is currently the largest cellular service provider in India and fifth largest in the world.

Reliance Communications (formerly Reliance Infocomm), along with Reliance Telecom and Flag Telecom, is part of Reliance Communications Ventures. Founded by Dhirubhai H Ambani in 2004, Reliance Communications Ltd is the flagship of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Reliance Communications is headquartered in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.