China Sets Fixed Rate For Mobile Messages

Posted by Reading Time: < 1 minute

Dec. 5 – Starting January 15, the fee for mobile short messages will be fixed at RMB0.10 nationwide with all short message packages to be canceled by January 1st, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Telecom companies including China Mobile and China Unicom, have been advised to stop offering all packages with varied mobile message charges beginning this month.

China is the top mobile market in the world with more than 627 million users. According Xinhua, the regulation should help develop a fair and open telecommunications market.

“The current packages limit the rights of consumers to choose the carriers and it’s not suitable now,” said Yang Peifang, an engineer at China Academy of Telecommunication Research, told Xinhua.

Under the current fee packages, China Unicom’s users are charged 50 percent more for sending short messages to China Mobile users.

China Mobile currently rules the telecom industry with 70 percent market share by the end of October or an estimated 400 million users. The new policy should benefit smaller telecom companies like China Unicom and China Telecom. China Unicom has more than 100 million users while China Telecom, has only 40 million users.