China Unicom to launch mobile IM service in August
Beijing. June 23. INTERFAX-CHINA- China United Network Communications Group Co. Ltd (China Unicom) announced June 21 via a micro-blog post that it plans to launch a mobile instant messaging (IM) service named Wolianxi.
The service will be compatible with popular mobile operating systems (OS), including Apple Inc.'s iOS and Google Inc.'s Android, according to an official online post by China Unicom on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese micro-blogging service.
Wolianxi users will also be able to send pictures, video and voice messages to subscribers on other mobile networks, the post said.
The service will launch in August this year, a China Unicom representative surnamed Guo told Interfax June 23.
Wolianxi is unlikely to dent the market share of Fetion, China Mobile Communications Corp.'s four-year-old mobile IM service, said Gu Jing, an analyst with Beijing-based NDC Consultants Ltd.
Launched on June 5, 2007, Fetion had 80.43 million users in the first quarter of 2011, representing a 30.70 percent share of China's mobile IM user base, according to Analysys International.
- RL