Suning Appliance Co, China's largest electronics retailer, plans to apply for a virtual network operator license to offer value-added telecom services, the company said on Tuesday.
The company plans to offer value-added services attached to the cell phones it sells in its brick-and-mortar stores as well as on its online channels, said Yao Zhengyuan, marketing manager of Suning's Shanghai operations.
The decision to enter the telecom market was bolstered by a recent government directive to "open key telecom areas to private entities", according to a notice published on the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Jan 8.
A virtual network operator, or VNO, is a provider of services and a reseller of network services from other telecom suppliers that does not own the telecom infrastructure.
A VNO usually leases bandwidth at wholesale rates from various telecom providers in order to provide tailored-made solutions to its customers.
Apart from Suning, small-cap telecom businesses, such as Longmaster Information & Technology Co Ltd, have expressed interest in obtaining a VNO license.
hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263 Registration Number: 130349 
