Telecom giants deny merger plans

A China Mobile Ltd stand at an international software and information service expo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. [Photo/China Daily]

Related story: China Mobile eyes 5G technology, by Xinhua

BEIJING - China Mobile, the country's largest 4G mobile network operator, has began development on the next generation of mobile internet following the success of 4G, a senior executive of the company said on Saturday.

Xi Guohua, chairman of the board for the telecom giant, made the announcement during the 13th China Enterprise Development Forum held by the Development Research Center of the State Council.

The move suggested the company is trying to maintain its leading position in an increasingly heated competition among the country's three and only telecom service providers.

However, Xi did not unveil more details on the ambitious strategy.

China Mobile outperformed its two rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom, in the 4G race after getting official approval to launch services based on TD-LTE standard by the end of 2013, nearly half a year ahead of the latter two.

China Mobile had 90 million 4G subscribers last year with 240 million cell phones sold and 700,000 base stations built, data from the company showed.

The other two operators did not release relevant data but media reports said even their combined figure cannot compete with China Mobile.

In addition, Xi said the successful development of TD-LTE improves China's research capability and equipment manufacturing.

China co-launched Global TD-LTE Initiative (GTI) in 2011 with telecom operators from other countries to promote the 4G technology in the world.