MADRID -- Telefónica and China Unicom announce today they have entered into a strategic procurement collaboration program with the purpose of selecting smartphones based on shared specifications, helping both companies deliver richer data services to a broader group of their consumers in China, Latin America and Europe.

Thanks to the close collaboration efforts of both parties’ device teams, a first joint procurement project has been successfully completed on 4G smartphones. As a result of a series of joint processes since the end of 2014, including joint industrial trends research, joint product specifications, and joint Global RFQ negotiations, it has been possible to achieve important economies of scale to acquire cost-effective smartphones from two leading handset vendors: Lenovo and TCL.

These 4G smartphones will be available in the 2nd half of 2015 in China, Europe and Latin America, and both China Unicom and Telefónica have developed specific consumer propositions and Go-To-Market plans in all countries to maximise their potential.

For Chinese brands such as Lenovo and TCL, this is a critical project to access the unparalleled combined scale and global footprint of Telefónica and China Unicom, expanding their reach to highly attractive mobile markets.

This important milestone is the first step of future common procurement activities, as we have explored and achieved an innovative way of procurement cooperation between the 2 world-class telecom operators. Telefónica and China Unicom have also agreed to continue working on other joint strategic initiatives.

Telefónica