Word: hutchisons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...cell-phone subscribers, however, remains to be seen. India's notoriously obstructionist regulatory policies are being reformed, allowing prices to slide and competition to increase. The market has drawn potent players in the form of cell-phone subsidiaries backed by foreign heavyweights such as Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa and AT&T Wireless. Other rivals are piling in: a government phone company, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, is expanding its mobile network. And in December, India's powerful Ambani family, which controls Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector company, is launching a discount national cellular service. Industry experts say the market...
Until recently, Li Ka-shing's business judgment seemed above reproach, thanks to his decades of virtually flawless maneuverings in everything from container ports to hotel management. The chairman of conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa enjoyed a reputation not unlike America's Warren Buffett?when he made a contrarian call, everyone assumed he was right and the world was wrong. But Li's latest and most controversial move yet?a mobile-telecom venture called Hutchison 3G?has some wondering whether the guy they call Superman has lost his mind...
...While almost every telecom company on the planet has postponed or shelved plans to build data-intensive, high-bandwidth mobile networks, Hutchison Whampoa is charging ahead undeterred. The company just launched pilot 3G (for third-generation) networks in England and Italy, and has aggressive plans to initiate similar services in seven other markets across the globe over the next several years. Even allies have doubts about the strategy. Hutchison's partners in the United Kingdom?Japan's NTT DoCoMo and the Netherlands' KPN Mobile?have written down the values of their portions of the business by 80% and 86%, respectively...
...Does Li know something that no one else knows? Maybe not. But perspective counts. While his rivals are worrying about how investment in new network technology will impact their already-shaky bottom lines, Li is clearly taking a longer view. He can afford to. Due to Hutchison 3G's position as one company within a diversified conglomerate, it has the financial resources and management conviction to take chances when others must scale back. Furthermore, Li's strategy becomes more comprehensible when you see telecom as he does: It's not a life-or-death proposition for his company...
...Most, that is, except Hutchison (which, for its part, spent a hefty $10 billion for all of its European licenses). The company is moving ahead with its plan to build and introduce the world's first multinational 3G network, with operations in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It has introduced a confident new brand name, "3," along with a snazzy logo and enough empowerment-through-technology hype to make you think it's 1999. "What we are doing is without precedent," says Hutchison 3G spokesman Matt Peacock in London...