China Telecom inked strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba on Sept. 13, shortly after it partnered up with another Internet giant NetEase to kick off instant messaging tool Yixin (report in Chinese).
Under the deal, the two companies will launch in-depth cooperation in information services, including basic communication service, mobile internet, cloud computing, and data center.
The two parties planned to jointly construct a cloud data center and put forward a new marketing model, in which Alipay will provide credit guarantee to its users to get China Telecom custom smartphones for 0 yuan. Through this cooperation, the two parties will be able to share their promotion resources and gain larger user base.
The tie-up aims to offer more innovative hardware and software products in a bid to provide communication and e-commerce solution plans to small- and medium-sized enterprises, governments and incorporations.
China Telecom currently has 164 million fixed-line users, 109 million broadband users and 179 million mobile subscribers (source in Chinese).
image credit:Dalaba
