(Yicai Global) June 27 -- China Broadnet has become the fourth state-backed carrier in China to offer fifth-generation wireless network services. To gain market share, the firm is likely to offer more attractive packages than the three telecoms heavyweights, an analyst said.

As a newbie, it will be very difficult for China Broadnet to take on China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, Securities Daily reported today, citing telecommunication sector analyst Fu Liang. To lure customers, it will need to offer discounts.

China Broadnet’s services can now be booked and phone numbers starting with the digits 192 will be available soon, Beijing Gehua CATV Network said on its WeChat account on June 8. The affiliate said it will partner with China Broadnet to run its 5G businesses and build a customer services system.

The new player’s cheapest monthly plan, at CNY118 (USD17.60), offers 40 gigabytes of data and 200 minutes of domestic phone calls. And its most expensive monthly package at CNY588 (USD88) comes with 398 Gb of data and 26 hours of calls. Both are CNY10 (USD1.50) less and offer more data than China Mobile’s comparative plans.

China Broadnet has been slow to join the 5G market. It was granted a 5G network operator license together with the three main players in June 2019. As of the end of May, 5G subscribers accounted for a quarter of the three carriers’ customers at 428 million, a gain of 4.2 percent from a year earlier.

China Broadnet could develop rapidly to 10 million 5G subscribers, China Galaxy Securities said in a research note.

Editor: Kim Taylor