Now, news on the mobile
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-07-28 08:50

The message service on mobile phones in China has taken on a new function: distributing newspaper content.

On july 18, the Beijing-based China Women's News started to provide a mobile phone version to multimedia message service (MMS) users. Subscribers to the new service receive headlines and leads of major news stories of the latest issues of the daily, as well as six to eight news photos.

More newspapers will become available via mobile phones, according to the Beijing Ehaui Network Technology Co, the technology partner of China Women's News' mobile service.

"We have signed contracts with several other newspapers, including the Workers' Daily and the China Youth Daily, on launching mobile newspaper services for them. These services will begin from August," said Tang Dansong, Ehaui chief.

Tang acknowledged subscribers to the mobile China Women's News are growing fast, but declined to reveal specific numbers.

Subscription to the service is set at 20 yuan (US$2.4) per month. To read a full news story, the user needs to pay an additional 1 yuan.

The company will share the profits of the service with the newspaper and mobile phone service operator, Tang said.

China now has more than 300 million mobile phone users, including an estimated 6 million using mobile phones with MMS features. MMS supports sending or receiving more than 10,000 Chinese characters in one text message, compared to 70 Chinese characters in the prevailing short message service (SMS) at present.

Shi songdong, a Ehaui manager, said the advance of mobile phone technology has made "cellphone newspapers" a lot more feasible. The issue is how to take maximum advantage of these improvements.

"The general public impression of MMS is that it's a tool for trendy adolescents to download screen savers and sounds to mobile phones. We'll show that the new technology will bring us not only that, but also a host of valuable information," added Shi.

China is probably the country that has best exploited the possibilities of mobile phone message service. While SMS and MMS are common chatting tools, they are also used to receive weather forecasts, train schedules, and warnings of ongoing theft and unusual money withdrawal from bank accounts.

People in China sent more than 200 billion cellphone messages in 2003. Insiders note that's about half the world's total number.

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