Latest Comments Show Why China Mobile’s Conservative Wang Should Retire 王建宙从中国移动退休或许已为期不远

By newsdoug on September 7, 2011

China Mobile in need of Wang retirement My latest glance at the morning headlines is reconfirming for me why longtime China Mobile (HKEx: 941; NYSE: CHL) Chairman Wang Jianzhou needs to step down, the sooner the better, and hand over control of the company to bolder new leadership that can bring some excitement back to this company. At first glance, his comments that China Mobile would face difficulty but could still reach its target of 50 million 3G subscribers this year looks relatively bold and aggressive (Chinese article), in contrast to a mostly conservative approach that caused the company to become a slow- or no-growth giant during his tenure. But then I did some math, which just shows how nothing about Wang has changed. China Mobile’s 3G network, based on a homegrown standard called TD-SCDMA, had 37.6 million subscribers at the end of July, up about 17 million from the beginning of the year. That means the company has added an average of 2.4 million 3G subscribers per month, with the numbers clearly accelerating in recent months. So doing the math, if it only continues to add subscribers at the same rate for the last 5 months of the year, it would just reach the 50 million subscriber mark. Clearly Wang is not taking any chances here, giving the most conservative forecast possible even though his company is clearly accelerating its 3G promotions, with a wide array of new handsets coming into the market and a deal to offer a TD-SCDMA version of Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) popular iPhone likely by the end of this year (previous post). With all of those factors working in its favor, Wang’s continued quoting of the 50 million figure, which was given at the beginning of this year and is so obviously attainable, is just the latest indication that he needs to leave China Mobile and let a younger, more aggressive generation of leaders bring back some excitement to the company. The Chinese government has already promoted two younger leaders to key positions in the clearest indication of Wang’s coming retirement (previous post), which should be strongly welcomed by shareholders when it finally comes.

Bottom line: China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou’s latest conservative comments underscore that he needs to retire soon and leave his company to a new generation of more aggressive leaders.

早上看到的媒体报导再次让我确信，中国移动董事长王建宙为何需要让位了，而且是越早越好，将公司的控制权交给更具魄力的新领导能够给这家公司带来新气象。他表示中国移动将面临困难，但今年仍有可能实现5,000万3G用户的目标。乍看之下，与多数时候采取的保守举动相比，他的讲话还算比较大胆和激进。但是，我随後做了些简单计算，发现王建宙的讲话仍然是了无新意。截止到7月底，中国移动基于本土TD-SCDMA标准的3G网络用户为3,760万，较年初增长了大约1,700万。这意味着公司每个月增加了240万3G用户，实际上3G用户数在最近几个月出现了加速增长态势。据此计算可知，如果以过去五个月的用户增长率计算，今年年底将正好达到5,000万。很显然，王建宙没有给出任何意外之喜，只是提供了可以做出的最保守估计，根本没有考虑中国移动正在加大3G网络促销力度，包括更多新型手机上市，以及根据协议很可能在年底推出基于TD-SCDMA网络的苹果iPhone手机。在坐拥这麽多有利条件的情况下，王建宙仍和年初一样，继续提5,000万这个显而易见很容易实现的目标，无意说明他到了该离开中国移动的时候了，需要让位于年富力强的一代公司领导上台，给公司带来一些新的成长动力。中国政府已经提拔了两位年轻一些的领导到中国移动担任要职，这是王建宙行将退休的最明确信号。当一切最终成真时候，定能受到股东的热烈欢迎。

一句话：中国移动董事长王建宙最近的保守言论凸显他尽早退休的必要性，将公司交予新一代更富进取心的领导。

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