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MOBILE phone sales in China are forecast to reach 150 million units in 2007, up 23.1 percent year-on-year, CCID Consulting said yesterday. Sales volume, however, was expected to drop 0.3 percent to 166.1 billion yuan (US$22.66 billion) because more low-end mobile phones were sold during the period. The average price of a mobile in China dropped from 1,408 yuan in 2006 to 1,142 yuan this year. In addition, more than 20 percent of mobiles sold were less than 500 yuan, the CCID said. Li Xuefang, a CCID consultant, cited increased demand for tailored phones by mobile operators and rising low-end mobile users in rural areas as the main reasons for the price drop. Promotions by domestic manufacturers of mid- and low-end mobiles also brought down the general selling price, she added. In the third quarter of 2007, Chinese brand mobiles accounted for a 33.4 percent market share, up from 31.1 percent in the second quarter. CCID also predicted mobile sales, driven by rising low-end

KAZAKHSTAN is seeking to more than double its stake in the Eni SpA-led Kashagan oil project as compensation for delays and cost overruns. The Central Asian country's government is seeking to raise its stake to 16.8 percent, Dinara Shaimardanova, an aide to Energy Minister Sauat Mynbayev, told Bloomberg News by phone yesterday from the Kazakh capital, Astana. The state now holds 8.3 percent. The government has disputed a second delay to the start of production at Kashagan, the world's biggest oil discovery in 30 years, and an increase in costs that it says have more than doubled the price for developing and running the field to US$136 billion. Kazakhstan and the group of companies led by Eni extended talks on the dispute until January 15 as Exxon Mobil Corp opposes the increase of the Kazakh stake, Shaimardanova said on Monday. Eni, Exxon, Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc all hold 18.5 percent of Kashagan, while ConocoPhillips has 9.3 percent. KazMunaiGaz National Co,

Vermont regulators opposed FairPoint's proposed $2.7 billion buyout of Verizon's local phone business in northern New England, but invited the company to reapply.

VIVENDI'S SA's SFR phone unit has offered to buy the rest of Neuf Cegetel for 4.5 billion euros (US$6.5 billion) to challenge France Telecom SA in the market for combined fixed-line, Internet and mobile services. SFR, which owns 40.5 percent of Neuf, will pay 34.50 euros a share for the 29.5 percent stake held by Louis Dreyfus & Cie, the commodities firm that helped found Neuf a decade ago, Bloomberg News reported. SFR will bid 36.50 euros for the remaining shares in the market. The prices include the 2007 dividend. The acquisition of Neuf Cegetel, France's second-largest fixed-line phone company, adds 3.1 million high-speed Internet customers for SFR and more than 3 billion euros in annual revenue. SFR, Vivendi's largest business, has about 34 percent of the French mobile market, compared with France Telecom's 45 percent. "This would create a more formidable competitor," Jerry Bellman, analyst at Kepler Equities in Paris, said. "For SFR this is a defensive move,

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, told a Treasury committee meeting that there never was a firm Lloyds TSB proposal to buy Northern Rock before the bank was forced to take emergency Bank of England support. He said there was "a vague phone call" in which Lloyds TSB wanted 30 billion pounds of funding for a few years at no penalty rate. King said he was of the view such a loan would be akin to state aid barred by the European Commission.

BAIDU.COM has teamed up with Huawei Technologies and Intel to strengthen its servers and search technologies to expand its lead in the domestic market over rivals including Google, Nasdaq-listed Baidu said yesterday. Baidu announced it will build a joint lab with Huawei to explore "next-generation" online search and test 3G-related mobile phone services, just one month after Google launched mobile search services in China. "Baidu has to break the bottleneck of the server capacity as the demand for search surges in China," William Chang, Baidu's chief scientist, said. "Baidu has to triple its existing capacity to reach the global level of services." In the third quarter, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest search traffic, with 10 billion hits per month, Baidu said. Baidu has launched a series of new services, such as an Olympics channel, game channel, Baidu TV and online music streaming (partnered with Rock Music Group).

The Denver phone giant unveiled its new strategy and a $1.8 billion equipment budget.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve on Friday released details Friday of the first auction under its newly created auction facility. The Fed will offer on Dec. 17 $20 billion in a 28-day loan. The minimum bid amount is $10 million. The minimum bid rate is 4.17%. The maximum award is $2 billion, or 10% of the offering amount. Participants must submit bids by phone to their local Reserve Bank between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. ET on Monday. The auction results will be announced on Dec. 19 at 10:00 a.m. The auction is an innovative attempt by the Fed and global central banks to inject dollar liquidity into the financial system. The auction is designed to lower inter-bank lending rates or at least put a cap on them. Inter-bank rates have been trading well above normal in recent weeks in the second bout of financial turmoil since the summer.

International voice traffic slows PEOPLE chatted on the phone making international calls for over 298 billion minutes (equivalent to well over half a million years) in 2006, according to TeleGeography, a research company. Telecoms firms are increasingly using Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) instead of traditional networks to carry calls. Voice traffic transported by both methods has increased by 10% since 2005, the slowest growth rate for 20 years. But the talking hasn't stopped. Much of this slowdown can be attributed to the uptake of computer-to-computer VOIP services such as Skype. Some 14.1 billion minutes of calls were made using Skype last year. ...

It seems like old times at AT&T. The nation's largest phone company announced a $15.2 billion stock buyback plan Tuesday and raised its dividend 13% to 40 cents, the biggest increase in AT&T history.

THE People's Insurance Company (Group) of China, or PICC, has agreed to invest 1.5 billion yuan (US$202 million) in Datang Mobile, the major developer of China's 3G mobile phone technology, Datang's parent firm said yesterday. The investment will finance the development of the long-awaited home-grown 3G technology TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access), and therefore hasten 3G licenses in China, industry insiders said. This is the biggest single investment by a Chinese insurance firm in telecommunications, Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group said yesterday. "It is an agreement between two giants and it will boost the development of the Chinese telecommunications industry and lead to further innovation," Wu Yan, PICC's president, said. Both sides declined to reveal what percentage of stake PICC will take in Datang Mobile. The company is developing the new mobile standard, from chip design to wireless base stations. "TD-SCDMA

VODAFONE'S Indian joint venture is transferring all of its information technology-related work to IBM Corp under a five-year contract that will help reduce costs and improve services, the company said yesterday. The company did not disclose the deal's value, but IBM said a similar contract earlier this year from Idea Cellular, whose network and subscriber base is half that of Vodafone Essar Ltd, is expected to be worth between US$600 million and US$800 million over 10 years. Vodafone Essar is India's fourth-largest cellular phone company, in which the British company acquired a controlling stake for US$10.9 billion in May. "Under the deal, IBM India will assume responsibility for the management of all Vodafone Essar's IT (information technology) operations with the exception of network service platforms," Vodafone Essar said in a statement. The deal will include maintaining billing, data centers and financial systems. The pact builds on Vodafone's existing

DEUTSCHE Telekom AG, Europe's biggest phone company, rose in German trading yesterday after the former monopoly unexpectedly said it will increase its dividend for the first time in two years. Deutsche Telekom gained 1.7 percent on the Frankfurt exchange. The payout will jump to 3.4 billion euros (US$5 billion), or 78 cents a share, for 2007, from 3.1 billion euros, or 72 cents, a year earlier, Chief Financial Officer Karl-Gerhard Eick told Bloomberg News late Thursday. The increase underscores Chief Executive Officer Rene Obermann's efforts to boost the attractiveness of Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom's stock, which has lagged behind Telefonica SA and Vodafone Group Plc. This week, France Telecom SA said it won't raise the portion of cash flow budgeted as dividends, and its stock fell 4.2 percent in one day. Dexia Bank NV analyst Rob Goyens said he will keep his "add" rating on Deutsche Telekom stock and increase his price estimate. "It's a nice

The French company that's made over 100 billion pens is looking to develop disposable cartridges for fuel cells for cell phones that could make recharging obsolete.

Nokia Corp. said Tuesday it expects the global market for mobile devices to grow 10 percent in 2008, to more than 1.2 billion units, and that its market share would increase. The world's largest mobile phone maker also predicted that the worldwide...

VimpelCom, Russia’s second-largest cellphone company, has offered to buy a rival, Golden Telecom, for about $4.2 billion to create Russia’s first integrated mobile and fixed-line provider. VimpelCom offered $105 a share for the Internet, voice and data provider, 3.5 percent higher than the closing price Friday, the companies said. They are “in discussions regarding the potential acquisition of all the outstanding common stock” of Golden Telecom, according to the statement. VimpelCom, which had more than 61 million subscribers at the end of October in Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, wants to branch out in more markets and into services like broadband. Golden Telecom said Nov. 8 it had 394,900 broadband subscribers in Russia.

THE country's biggest listed electronics maker is to sell its loss-making computer business to an overseas investor. The Shenzhen-listed TCL Corp said yesterday it would dispose of its PC operations with the sale of an 82-percent stake in the unit. Shares of TCL stopped trading yesterday to await a further announcement. TCL's computer unit lost 67.8 million yuan (US$8.9 million) last year on sales of 2.14 billion yuan, the Huizhou-based company told the Shenzhen Stock Exchange earlier. The move follows Lenovo's acquisition of IBM's PC business and Acer's purchase of Gateway. TCL made a profit in the first half of the year, helped by cost cutting. Its net profit was 45.1 million yuan compared with a net loss of 746.4 million yuan a year earlier. After the sale of the PC unit, TCL will focus on the TV and telephone business. The company recently announced a deal to sell the BlackBerry phone in China next year.

A CONTRACT manufacturer of mobile phones for customers, including Motorola Inc, and its parent could raise as much as HK$7.7 billion (US$989 million) in a Hong Kong initial public offering. BYD Electronic and parent BYD Co are selling 550 million shares, equivalent to a 25-percent stake, at HK$10.75 to HK$14 each, according to an e-mail sent to international institutions, Bloomberg News reported. BYD Co, based in Shenzhen in south China, has more than doubled in Hong Kong trading this year on expectations it may profit for a sale of its handset-component unit. BYD Electronic, which competes with Foxconn International Holdings Ltd for contracts to make phones, is building production plants in China, Hungary and Romania to meet demand. BYD Electronic makes casings and keypads for Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top two mobile-phone makers, Daiwa Institute of Research said in a November 23 report. The Chinese company also assembles phones for Illinois-based

Are potential suitors burning up the phone lines at Sprint Nextel? At least one analyst doesn’t think so, and investors seem to have their doubts as well. Just a few months ago, when deal-making was rampant, reports that SK Telecom and Providence Equity Partners had offered to invest $5 billion in Sprint Nextel could easily have [...]

BANK of China Ltd's Hong Kong unit said its purchase of a 4.9 percent stake in Bank of East Asia Ltd, the city's third-largest bank, doesn't presage a takeover. BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Ltd, 65.8 percent owned by China's second-largest bank, yesterday announced it paid HK$3.95 billion ($507 million) for the holding, calling it a "financial investment." "At this point in time, we don't contemplate any further transaction which involves Bank of East Asia," BOC Hong Kong spokeswoman Clarina Man said in a phone interview yesterday. Yesterday's announcement surprised some analysts, who were expecting an overseas lender to target Bank of East Asia to get access to its growing branch network in China, Bloomberg News reported. La Caixa, Spain's largest savings bank, holds a 4.2 percent stake in the company. "Bank of East Asia has always been talked about as a possible target for a foreign bank to take over as a fast way to get into China and Hong Kong,"