"We have achieved brilliant results in the past year in terms of our CDMA project," Wang Jianzhou, president of China Unicom, said yesterday.

The company said it had more than 7 million mobile-phone subscribers for its CDMA system by December 25.

China Unicom officially launched its CDMA networks on January 8 last year.

The firm is expected to recruit about 13 million new CDMA mobile subscribers this year.

Wang attributed the increasing number of users to CDMA's outstanding features, such as good voice quality, a high degree of privacy and its strong wireless data communications capability.

As China's second-largest mobile operator, China Unicom has so far recruited 65 million mobile-phone subscribers including both CDMA users and those who use GSM (global system for mobile communications). The total figure accounts for 30 percent of the country's total.

"The achievement we've made proves that our market strategies to develop both GSM and CDMA are feasible and efficient," Wang said.

"Thus, we offer more choices to our customers," he added.

Aiming to further boost its CDMA projects, the company held a CDMA operators summit in Beijing last December.

The event attracted 10 leading CDMA operators and developers worldwide, including the CDMA Development Group, a California-based international consortium of companies.

(China Daily January 9, 2003)