KT, LG Uplus team up to fight SKT acquisition
South Korea’s number two and three mobile operators – KT and LG Uplus – have teamed up to oppose rival SK Telecom’s plan to acquire CJ HelloVision, the country’s largest cable TV company.

SKT announced in early November plans to acquire CJ O Shopping’s 30 per cent stake in CJ Hellovision for KRW500 billion ($440 million). CJ O Shopping’s remaining stake (23.9 per cent) in CJ Hellovision can be later acquired by SKT through call and put options between the two firms.

SKT needs approval from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. KT and LG Uplus argue the deal would hurt market competition given SKT’s dominant position in the mobile sector, the Korea Times said.

China Telecom taps AlcaLu for 4G upgrade
China Telecom contracted Alcatel-Lucent to expand the capacity of its 4G network across 12 provinces as demand for data video content rises rapidly.

Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its 9926 eNodeB radio access technology in 12 provinces, while introducing LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation capabilities for FDD-LTE in major cities for the first time in China.

The vendor also will supply IP core routers and edge routers to enable the country’s third largest operator to manage the growing data centre demand in Beijing and Guangzhou.

Indosat rebrands, launches digital initiative
Indonesia’s second largest operator Indosat has been rebranded as Indosat Ooredoo and launched a three-year initiative to become the country’s leading digital mobile operator.

It has set the ambitious goal to be number one in digital revenue, digital experience and digital brand preference.

Alexander Rusli, president director, said: “The transformation we announce today is inside-out. Alongside the new identity unveiled, we have challenged ourselves to build Indonesia’s leading digital telco over the next three years.”

Asus to expand production in Indonesia
Asus plans to shift production of its ZenFone in Indonesia next year from a local OEM producer to Taiwan-based ODM Arima Communications.

Asus said sales of the ZenFone smartphone, launched in 2014, recently hit five million in Indonesia, DigiTimes reported. Last week it launched the ZenFone 2 Deluxe special edition in Jakarta.

Arima is to set up a handset factory with local handset retail channel Tiphone Mobile with an investment of $50 million. The factory, with an initial monthly production capacity of 300,000 handsets, will produce Tiphone’s own-brand handsets as well as smartphones for Asus, Sony Mobile, LG Electronics and other international vendors starting early next year.

Asus is the second largest smartphone vendor in Indonesia, after Samsung, and aims to be number one in 2017.

Lenovo seeks exception on local content rule
China’s Lenovo plans to ask the Indonesian government for an exemption from the recently approved local-content rules to import Motorola smartphones to test the brand’s market appeal.

The company recently started assembling Lenovo branded phones at a local plant to prepare to meet the 30 per cent local content regulation at the beginning of 2017. But it wants to be allowed to import and sell Motorola devices to test the market, the Jakarta Globe reported.

Its production capacity is focused on Lenovo handsets.