lthough inevitable it will still be a surprise to some readers that China will start offering services in Europe
The days are gone that ´Made in China´ was a dismissive label. Large amounts of consumer products are manufactured in China and most of the former made in Europe or in the USA labels have been replaced by now. We all know every toy, every HP laptop and every iPhone is made in China.
But we were told not to worry by European economists. The old continent had just out-sourced the uninteresting part of actually making products. The future and the money was in added value services. Europe would be leading the world in offering services as that was the perfect match: highly educated and a good infrastructure made Europe ideally placed to become huge in the service industries.
Fast forward to January 2012 and what happens. The third largest telecom provider in China starts offering mobile services in the UK. Not through the nitty gritty process of building your own network. No, skip that, just offer added value on an existing network.
China Telecom, the equivalent of British Telecom in the UK, will become a virtual operator on the infrastructure of Everything Everywhere, a 50-50 joint venture of France Télécom and Deutsche Telekom that is the market leader there. Targeted mainly at Chinese expats for the moment expect to see similar operations in France, Germany and Italy by the end of 2014.
To quote the article:
“Philippa Chan, a spokeswoman for China Telecom, said a large population of Chinese lived in Britain, part of an estimated two million there and in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. “The 2012 Olympic Games will be a huge opportunity for China Telecom,” she said.”
So clearly the Chinese are arriving in numbers and they take their own services with them. Not exactly the way our futurists predicted! Do we care or do we need to step up the quality of our European services to stay in the lead?
author: Max Huijgen
The new service from China Telecom will run on the network of Britain’s market leader and is aimed at Chinese living in Britain and visitors to the country.