China Telecom's Shares Rise After Becoming Last of Country's Big Three Telcos to Roll Out Token Plans

(Yicai) May 19 -- Shares of China Telecom jumped after it followed China Mobile and China Unicom in launching trial commercial token plans, with the country's three largest telecom carriers entering the token services market and accelerating the commercialization of artificial intelligence computing power.China Telecom [SHA: 601728] rose 3.7 percent to CNY7.07 (USD1.03) a share as of lunch break in Shanghai today, after closing 7.7 percent higher yesterday. Its Hong Kong-listed stock [HKG: 0728] fell 0.9 percent to HKD5.59 (71 US cents) today, but ended up 6 percent yesterday.China Telecom's trial token plans are segmented by user type, the Beijing-based company announced on May 17. Three monthly tiers are available for developers and small and micro enterprises, priced at CNY39.90, CNY159.90, and CNY299.90 (USD5.87, USD23.50, and USD44.10) and covering 15 million, 70 million, and 150 million tokens, while plans for individuals and households start at CNY9.90 for 10 million tokens a month.On May 15, Shanghai Telecom, the city branch of China Telecom, launched a pay-as-you-go option at CNY1 per 250,000 tokens, with access to more than 30 mainstream large language models.Shanghai Unicom, the city arm of China Unicom, began offering token services to local sole-proprietor clients on May 16, with a free trial quota of 30 million tokens valid through the end of next month. Hubei Unicom launched AI computing packages that include a Token Plan and a Coding Plan in late April.China Mobile's subsidiaries in Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shandong provinces, as well as Beijing, have been rolling out token plans since last month, with Beijing Mobile offering a one-time purchase option starting at CNY5.99."Telecom operators have long been searching for new growth curves," said Ma Jihua, an independent analyst covering telcos and the internet. As the underlying computing infrastructure for many LLMs and AI agent applications, operators can now monetize that capacity through their own distribution channels, generating direct income while drawing more customers into their data centers and creating a closed commercial loop, he said, adding that their entry into the market should help bring AI computing to everyday users at more affordable prices.However, token revenue remains modest in scale and is unlikely to sustain long-term growth on its own, Ma pointed out. The next step, he said, is for telecom operators to open up genuinely useful intelligent applications that combine computing power with connectivity, creating the kind of "killer" services that reflect the distinct strengths of the telecom industry.The term token was officially standardized in Chinese as "词元" (cí yuán) by Liu Liehong, director of the National Data Administration, at the China Development Forum in March, defining it as the smallest unit of information processed by an LLM.China's average daily token usage exceeded 140 trillion as of March, more than 1,000 times that at the start of 2024, according to the NDA. By industry convention, 1,000 tokens correspond to roughly 500 to 700 Chinese characters.Shares of China Mobile [SHA: 600941] climbed 0.3 percent to CNY100.61 apiece in Shanghai today, after ending up 2.4 percent yesterday, while in Hong Kong, its stock [HKG: 0941] rose 0.5 percent to HKD86.80 (USD11.08) today and 0.2 percent yesterday. China Unicom [SHA: 600050] increased 0.8 percent today following a 5.6 percent gain yesterday to top CNY4.96.Editor: Martin Kadiev