Sales growth is “stabilizing” at China Mobile (CHL) and the company is set to benefit from continued 4G expansion in China, Nomura analysts said in an upgrade note released Tuesday. “We suggest investors buy China Mobile for its ramp-up of 4G subscriber adoption, stabilizing revenue growth and (average revenue per user) improvement,” wrote Nomura analysts Leping Huang and David Hao. Nomura raised its rating to buy from neutral and boosted its
Two government initiatives in China could hurt Apple’s iPhone sales in the near term, UBS analyst Steven Milunovich warned in a research report Friday. China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) is urging the three wireless carriers to reduce their sales and marketing costs and also is taking the lead to form a tower-building company to manage mobile base stations. “Our telco team sees these two factors potentially curbing the pace of the LTE and TD-LTE roll-out in 2014-15,” Milunovich wrote. UBS estimates that China Mobile ‘s (CHL) goal of adding 80 million to 90 million 4G TD-LTE subscribers this year could be cut in half to 30 million to 40 million. China Mobile is the country’s largest wireless carrier. The Chinese agency is considering a plan for its three wireless carriers to reduce marketing costs by 20%, which would lower subsidies for high-end smartphones such as Apple ‘s …
China’s influence on the global smartphone market was felt strongly in the first quarter, as it soaked up 40% of total unit shipments, research firm IDC said Wednesday. “The face of the smartphone market is changing rapidly to reflect the rise of its largest market, China, where a record 40% of the smartphones shipped worldwide in 1Q14 were bound to Chinese consumers,” analyst Melissa Chau said in IDC’s Q1 smartphone report. “In a quarter where global shipments declined sequentially, China bucked the trend. “The market benefited from its seasonal Lunar New Year uptick, greater emphasis on 4G devices following the December TD-LTE network launch, and the official launch of Apple (AAPL) at China Mobile (CHL) resulted in volumes a third higher than 4Q13 levels.” Worldwide smartphone shipments totaled 281.5 million units in Q1, down 2.8% from Q4 but up 28.6% from Q1 2013, IDC said. IDC expects total smartphone…