Society

Dial up China Daily on your cell phone

By Renee Haines and Xing Xudong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-19 07:42

BEIJING - China's largest mobile service provider will introduce a new China Daily application for its Mobile Market on Wednesday in Beijing.

China Mobile's application store, Mobile Market, will offer the China Daily application at http://mm.10086.cn, allowing customers to download print, picture and audio features at a price ranging from free to a one-time charge of 5 yuan (75 cents).

This new service, continually updated each day, boasts 300 different platforms to meet the requirements of the hundreds of mobile phone models now in use in China.

Starting this week, via Mobile Market, subscribers can download China Daily audio programs to their cell phones to hear English-learning and entertainment features offline.

All English/Chinese news items - updated throughout each day - are accompanied by high-tech audio versions, read by veteran English-language news broadcasters.

Mobile Market already boasts a catalogue of more than 35,000 applications for its 14 million registered store users, according to China Mobile's website. More than 2,000 companies and 50,000 individuals are providing these applications.

"China Daily is honored to offer China Mobile's 564 million mobile phone customers a new way to read, hear and see news from China and around the world," said Zhang Xingbo, president of the China Daily website.

"China Mobile is a global leader in innovative, high-technology mobile communications for the world's largest mobile phone market. We are delighted to be a partner in this enterprise and its cutting-edge Mobile Market," Zhang added.

According to Juniper Report, a UK-based industry watcher, direct and indirect revenues from mobile applications offered by all service providers are expected to exceed $25 billion worldwide by 2014.

"Our new application will expand our services to our bilingual subscribers and those who are part of China Mobile's fast-growing customer base," said Tan Lili, deputy general manager of the Internet base of China Mobile.

"As we move from second-generation (2G) to 3G and 4G mobile communications technologies, we will continue to provide our subscribers with increasingly sophisticated and diverse downloads and services," Tan said.

As China's first bilingual mobile news service provider, China Daily began its partnership with China Mobile in early 2008, providing bilingual mobile news editions for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and expanding its subscriber base from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong and Singapore.

One year later, China Daily's website and mobile news divisions began offering audio news services.

In addition to providing an English-learning tool for students, teachers and professionals, the China Daily application also will serve native English listeners via its simultaneous English/Chinese text and English-language audio translations of domestic and world news and entertainment features.

Photographs accompanying mobile phone news stories will also allow subscribers to "see" the news.

"Our mobile phone subscribers, wherever they are, will have a remarkable communications device with a truly global reach that fits into the palm of their hand," said China Mobile's Tan.

"The new China Daily application will fit well with our existing Mobile Market applications to provide our customers with news, sports, music, games, traffic reports, weather forecasts and a variety of learning opportunities," he added.