Friday, April 25, 2014

Alibaba to launch mobile telecom services in China

News this week: The Alibaba Group has announced it will offer telecom services in mainland China including 3G data and voice calls beginning in June 2014. The telecom packages will be sold through Alibaba Group’s consumer-focused e-commerce platforms, Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com.

The service expansion resulted from HiChina, an Alibaba-owned subsidiary, receiving a mobile virtual network operators’ (MVNO) license from the Chinese government in January this year. HiChina was one of 11 private firms granted licenses from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The MVNO program enables private companies to resell telecom services from China’s three largest telecom providers, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – all of which Alibaba is working with to launch its service.

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