Chinese enterprises are showing increasing interest in mobile corporate services and solutions, according to a survey conducted by Roland Berger, a Germany-based strategy consultant.

The survey was conducted among 40 leading Chinese enterprises in 10 key industries such as telecom, logistics, electronics and retailing.

"Mobile corporate services and solutions are becoming a new profit generator for many industries given the wide use of mobile technologies," said Hartmut Schnabel, senior manager of Roland Berger (Shanghai) Ltd at a press conference recently in Beijing.

The survey found that 37 of the 40 companies showed interest in mobile corporate services.

And more than 50 per cent of the companies hope to use such services in the next one to three years to enhance their competitiveness.

According to Roland Berger, mobile corporate services and solutions are not limited to mobile commerce such as mobile banking or online payment via handset; they also include services specially planned for a particular enterprise, such as telematics and mobile customer relationship management, which are set to improve the enterprise efficiency and enhance their business performance.

"Companies with more exposure to the international market showed more interest in mobile corporate solutions," said Schnabel.

The survey said that improving the quality of their service, reducing production cost and exploring more business opportunities top the enterprises' reasons for adopting mobile solutions.

Also, most of the companies were keen to have personalized mobile solutions for their businesses.

Globally, the mobile communications market has gradually developed from voice service to value-added data service.

Analysts believe that the spectacular growth in short message services (SMS) is a sign of demand potential for mobile data service.

China is a huge market for mobile solutions given the enormous market and the huge pool of mobile subscribers, according to Schnabel.

Figures from the Ministry of Information Industry show that at the end of July last year, China had 239 million mobile-phone subscribers.

Analysts believe that the growth rate for China's mobile subscribers is likely to surpass an annual 30 per cent year-on-year till 2005; and expect the upcoming 3G service to greatly boost the mobile data service.

Given the complexity of the mobile service chain, Roland Berger believes that it's important for enterprises to form alliances with business partners such as telecom operators, technology developers and content providers for mobile solutions.

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