Nokia plans to expand considerably the GSM network of China Unicom's Zhejiang Branch, which will boost the operator's network capacity by 200,000 subscribers – part of a range of recent contracts Nokia signed for the GSM network expansion and service of China Unicom's branches in seven Chinese provinces, worth more than US$48 million in total.

Nokia was chosen as a main supplier for Zhejiang Unicom following the Shanghai Unicom deal announced in September 2003, under which agreement, Nokia supplies its mobile switching, radio-access network infrastructure, the Nokia NetAct(TM) network and service management system, as well as implementation, radio network planning, hardware services, optimization, training and care services.

"China Unicom is committed to offering its customers the most advanced mobile services and highest quality and that made Nokia the obvious choice for our Zhejiang Unicom GSM network expansion. We are very happy to see that the number of GSM subscribers in Zhejiang Province has doubled over the past two years," says Zhu Ping, General Manager, China Unicom Zhejiang Branch.

"Nokia has enjoyed a long and successful cooperation with China Unicom and we are pleased to continue supplying them with our leading GSM solution and services in Zhejiang Province," says David Ho, Senior Vice President, Nokia Networks, China.