China Mobile still eyeing Africa

China Mobile said it is still interested in the African market despite not bidding for a stake in African telecom operator MTN Group, the South China Morning Post reported. After China Mobile’s annual general meeting, the company’s chairman, Wang Jianzhou, said that his company was "exploring opportunities to make investments on that continent," while denying that it had made a bid for MTN, which is up for sale. Some analysts have said that a failure to buy a stake in MTN, which has a market capitalization of US$40 billion and operations in 20 African markets, represents a lost opportunity for China Mobile. China Mobile, which has been expanding its operations overseas, recently posted a 37% jump in first-quarter profits over a year earlier.