By Herman Lai, posted May 8, 2012 at 1:01 AM, 638 views,

China Telecom Engaging Boss To Buy iPhone For their Employees

China Telecom posted their first-quarter profit statement recently, indicated the iPhone that introduced back in March had boosted the cost and resulted with less income. Therefore, the carrier is launching a campaign in order to boost the sales of iPhone in Beijing.

The campaign is simple and straight forward. Customers who buy 10 iPhone 4S sets together and register for a plan at the same time will be given another iPhone. A China Telecom spokesman told The Standard that the promotion deal is to aimed at corporate clients who are providing members of their staffs with cutting-edge communication tools. The company is expecting the campaign can quickly boost profits to overcome the slump in the first quarter of this year.

China Telecom’s total profit declined 6.5 percent in the first quarter from a year ago. Major impact comes from subsidies of iPhone, which contributed to a 31 percent gain in sales costs. A Hong Kong-based analyst said core earnings would probably have increased 10 percent if the iPhone impact is excluded. Furthermore, its 3G customer acquisition down by more than 7% on 2011’s fourth quarter, as added only 7.26 million new 3G subscribers during the period. China Telecom’s subscriber base has 135.8 million at the end of March, ranks third in Asia, which sits behind China Mobile and China Unicom. After adding 7.26 million new 3G users from the iPhone deal, the company now has 43.6 million 3G users.

Actually, it’s not surprising that China Telecom is not benefit from iPhone deals since China Unicom launched the phone two months earlier, and they were the second carrier to offer the iPhone with a subsidy. By the way, China Unicom’s profit surge to seven times higher than last year. Could the promotion helps China Telecom to recover from the drop?

Source: Bloomberg, Sina