China Mobile completes 2nd phase 3G network tender

MACAU (Reuters) - China Mobile, the world's largest mobile service provider, said on Tuesday the tender for construction of the second phase of its parent's third-generation mobile network had been completed.

Chairman Wang Jianzhou told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Macau that the tender had been concluded, but he declined to provide financial details.

The completion of the tender, reportedly worth 30 billion yuan ($4.40 billion), will allow China Mobile to jumpstart the construction of a homegrown high-speed third-generation wireless standard (TD-SCDMA) network that is expected to begin operating in the middle of 2009.

The second phase would expand the 3G service of Hong Kong-listed China Mobile to an additional 28 cities, taking the mobile giant's coverage to 38 cities next year, Wang said.

ZTE Corp, a Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor, had won about 28 percent of the 30 billion yuan orders from China Mobile, the South China Morning Post reported over the weekend.

Shares of ZTE rose as much as 4.5 percent before retreating to HK$13.76, up 2 percent in early Tuesday trade.

Other winners in the tender include Datang Mobile, the patent holder of the TD-SCDMA technology, together with Alcatel Shanghai, Huawei Technologies and Siemens Networks, the newspaper said.

($1=6.826 Yuan)

(Reporting by Joanne Chiu; Editing by Ken Wills)