The sale, announced late Tuesday, is the first in what is expected to be a series of sell-offs of Vodafone’s minority holdings as it seeks to focus on core markets in a bid to improve its share price.
Around 70 per cent of the net proceeds of the China Mobile sale, after tax and transaction costs, will be returned to shareholders through a share buyback, said Vodafone. The remainder will be used to reduce the group’s debt.
Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile operator by revenue, initially bought a 2.18 per cent stake in China Mobile in 2000 and increased its holding to 3.2 per cent in 2002.
The group insisted that despite the sell-off it would continue cooperating with China Mobile.

Source : Konaxis

The joint innovation lab will serve as a platform for the parties to develop mobile services and drive innovation and synergy in the industry to the benefit their combined global customer base, and it will also launch projects based on emerging technologies and market demand.

The Lab reportedly will focus on pushing the development of new mobile technology, application and services such as mobile widgets. In the initial stage, it plans to develop a platform for mobile widgets to encourage the development of innovative new services that can leverage mobile operators’ unique capabilities. The parties hope that the lab can enable different widgets and applications to run seamlessly on different handset platforms and operating systems across different mobile operators, while safeguarding customer security, data privacy and billing systems.

The proposed lab is awaiting regulatory approval in China, and the parties have not provided a definitive date when they will have their grand opening.

Source : Chinatechnews

With a total population of only about seven million, Hong Kong is not an area that AOL can expect to earn lots of revenue. However it is an important psychological and strategic bid for the company as it hopes to jumpstart its America Online name and bring American business hegemony to Greater China netizens. The company will provide email, instant messaging, and regional content from local partners on this Hong Kong destination.

‘The launch of AOL.hk is just the beginning of an ongoing effort to provide consumers in Hong Kong with the services and content they want,’ warned Norman Koo, VP and general manager for Greater China, in a press statement. ‘Our industry-leading products and programming combined with our content partnerships will provide a unique experience for consumers and advertisers, as well as an international, regional and local mix of news, finance and entertainment information.’

Similar to a deal announced in Taiwan, AOL will provide a co-branded language portal for users of HP desktop and notebook PC’s in Hong Kong. This deal will assist AOL in claiming to advertisers a certain amount of users and help to create greater brand equity.