China’s 3 Mobile Telcos Embrace Group-Messaging Apps, for Free SMS

China Telecom's new group-messaging app, which will launch next week. (Image source: Sina Tech news)

The upcoming launch of a group-messaging service by China Telecom (NYSE:CHA) next week means that all three Chinese mobile telcos now have free SMS/IM-like apps. It’s a signal that the mobile networks see more profit in getting wealthier users on data plans – either GPRS or, preferably, 3G – rather than clinging on to the old SMS cash-cow.

China Telecom’s free messaging service will reportedly launch next week, with the name Yi Liao (pictured above), which directly translates to ‘wing chat.’ It’s believed it’ll launch with apps for iOS, Android, and Symbian. The service will support free text-, voice-, and even video-messages – so long as users have their GPRS or 3G switched on.

The other two larger mobile telcos are in on the action already. China Mobile (NYSE:CHL) has both its Fei Liao app, and a slightly more basic parallel service for texts only, called Fei Xin (pictured above).

Also, China’s second-largest mobile network, China Unicom (NYSE:CHU), has its fairly new Wo You (also pictured above) service.

In the most recent stats we have for August 2011, China Mobile had 627.6 million subscribers, while China Unicom had 186.1 million. But, only about 15 percent of Unicom’s users are on 3G – despite them carrying the iPhone – while China Mobile has an even lower proportional 3G user-ship of 6 percent.

Elsewhere in the smartphone ecosystem, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iMessage is now slipping into the hands of global users who have upgraded to iOS 5. Also, some major Chinese web companies have gotten in on the group-messaging fun, such as Tencent’s (HKG:0700) own Weixin app.

[News source for Yi Liao app: Sina Tech news – article in Chinese]