China Mobile - foreign acquisitions

China Mobile eyes more overseas acquisitions

China Mobile, the country's top wireless operator, said Tuesday it planned to take advantage of the global stock market downturn to acquire overseas telecom firms that have now become cheaper.

"(China Mobile) would like to acquire high-quality and profit-making telecommunications enterprises overseas," Lei Yu, a spokeswoman of China Mobile's Hong Kong-listed unit, told AFP.

She declined to provide any timetable for the expansion.

The official China Securities Journal reported Tuesday that the company was eyeing some relatively small telecom companies in other Asian markets as declining stock market had resulted in lower prices.

"With the market capitalisation of these firms dropping, we will have the chance to strike more deals," the report said, citing Wang Jianzhou, president of China Mobile Communications Corporation.

"We've been watching closely emerging markets," Wang said at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.

So far China Mobile has made only one overseas takeover, buying an 88.86-percent stake in Pakistan's fifth-largest mobile operator Paktel for 284 million dollars in January 2007.