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WirelessDevNet.com Press Release
Hutchison Launches HK's First 3G Ops; 10 Retail Shops
HONG KONG (Dow Jones)--Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (0013.HK) launched its third-generation wireless operations in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the first 3G rollout in the city since licenses were handed out three years ago.
The conglomerate has opened 10 retail outlets in the city, and has on hand 50,000 of its new NEC 616 3G handsets, said Agnes Nardi, managing director of 3 Hong Kong.
"We expect to be selling well," said Nardi. She declined to give sales targets.
The new NEC 616 3G handset to be employed for the service also has a Chinese template.
The "3" service includes 19 entertainment channels offering sports, music, video messaging, electronic mail, and stocks and foreign exchange information. Monthly tariff plans start at HK$263, while the price of a handset is HK$4380 if bought alone or HK$3980 each if two are bought at the same time.
Hutchison originally planned to launch 3G operations in Hong Kong early last year, but postponed it to August and later on to the end of last year, before saying it would launch sometime this month.
Initially, glitches in the fledgling technology led to delays in the group's trailblazing global launch of wideband CDMA, the 3G standard for GSM, or Global System for Mobile, technology. Later, a shortage of handsets set back the deployment of the technology.
Besides Hutchison Whampoa's unit Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Ltd., the other three operators planning to launch 3G sometime this year are Sunday Communications Ltd. (SDAY), Hong Kong CSL Ltd., owned by Australia's Telstra Corp. (TLS), and SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings (0315.HK).
Hutchison, which has 3G licenses in 10 markets including Hong Kong, launched its high-speed network in the U.K. and Italy in March and now also has operations in Australia, Austria and Sweden. The company said last month it had 660,000 3G subscribers worldwide.
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