China Mobile charts a CSR course for the future

China Mobile Communications Corporation (China Mobile), the nation's largest wireless telecommunication operator, recently released its third annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, which highlighted the role it played in providing mobile services for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics.

The report said that since July 21, 2004, when China Mobile signed a contract with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad to become a partner of the international sporting event, to Sept 17, 2008, the final day of the Paralympic Games, the mobile telecommunications service provider invested tremendous amounts of equipment, technology and human resources in the event.

Statistics from the State-owned company showed that a total of 175,000 China Mobile staff supplied services to the Games. The company set up temporary mobile service networks at 31 Olympic contest venues and seven training centers nationwide, boosting its networking capacity by as much as 40 percent.

Meanwhile, the Fortune 500 company upgraded wireless telecommunications networks in six Olympic contest cities - Shanghai, Tianjin, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, Shenyang and Hong Kong.

Despite the huge traffic, Beijing and the six other Olympic contest cities had a mobile communications success rate of 99.94 percent during the six weeks of the two Games, a world record.

In addition to routine services, China Mobile leveraged 3G technologies to launch a series of creative services for the 2008 Games.

It actively promoted mobile television to help people watch live events. The report said that 1.65 million subscribers watched live broadcasts between Aug 8 and Sept 17, 2008.

Video-on-demand, inter-network calling, and Olympic news services were also available, and were used almost 50,000 person-times.

China Mobile also issued a mobile Olympic newspaper during the Games, attracting over 13 million subscribers.

To enhance its services to overseas visitors, the nation's top wireless telecommunications provider strengthened its cooperation with overseas counterparts to offer a 24/7 information service in nine languages during the Games.

The company said in the CSR report that 32,446 China Mobile hotline operators had provided 11,000 person-time related services to overseas people in China during the Games.

Since Aug 1, 2008, 400,000 volunteers supported by China Mobile, mainly university students, started their duties at 500 China Mobile volunteer stations in 18 districts and counties around the capital.

They contributed more than 47 million person-hours providing information, translation and emergency services to over 2 million people. At the same time, China Mobile volunteers donated 25,000 hours in similar services.

According to China Mobile President Wang Jianzhou, his company made full play of its wireless telecommunications expertise during the 2008 Olympics and Paralympics and accumulated rich experience in terms of supporting large-scale events.

Wang has been invited by London, the host city of 2012 Games, to be an Olympic organization consultant to the city's mayor.

He said that its successes in 2008 had laid solid foundations for the role it will play in supporting the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

The corporation was one of the first domestic companies to issue a CSR report. And China Mobile Limited, the Hong Kong-listed arm of China Mobile, has joined the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the first company from the Chinese mainland to do so.

During the first nine months of 2008, China Mobile's key business sales revenue amounted to 324.2 billion yuan, and the corporation paid 44.3 billion in taxes to government coffers.

By the end of last year, China's largest wireless telecommunications firm had over 450 million subscribers.

(China Daily 02/23/2009 page10)