You own Unicom but not China Mobile. Both companies are similarly valued if you look at market capitalization plus debt as a ratio of earnings before accounting charges, a common valuation tool for telecom firms. We are looking at a viable business environment with more than a decade of secular growth. For both companies, even a small percentage increase in penetration will translate into millions of new customers. Unicom's edge is that it is the only listed integrated telecommunication company in China, with wireless, paging, domestic long distance and Internet divisions.
China Mobile is only a mobile operator.
In China, there seems to be a preference for advanced versions of CDMA as the platform for third-generation implementation, so it may not be so bad for Unicom to hedge its bets by operating two different networks. Both are very cheap, but that is not the reason we've picked them. NOL's true strength lies in its potential as an integrated shipping and logistics firm. It is one of only two global shipping companies that is investing heavily in logistics services. For its part, Konsortium manages warehouses and a prime-mover fleet, but owns practically no ships.