The revenue contributed by data businesses accounted for less than one third of China Mobile's total turnover. In times when China Mobile can achieve rapid growth by increasing user numbers and strengthening its voice business, it is no hurry to find new revenue sources.

"But when the domestic mobile market nears saturation point, it will be extremely critical for the company to boost its data businesses," Huang added.

A fluent English speaker, Wang is a man with a global vision. His amiable nature and openness to partners, investors and the media has helped China Mobile to increase its brand recognition around the world.

Unrealized dreams

However, to truly lift the influence of China Mobile in the world, the company should expand its business overseas, Wang said. The global market will provide new revenue engines, especially when China Mobile faces domestic challenges arising from industry convergence, intensified competition and increasingly high mobile penetration.

The mobile giant has conducted only one overseas acquisition so far. It bought Paktel Ltd, a loss-making Pakistani carrier, in 2007 for $284 million from Millicom International Cellular SA. The company was renamed China Mobile Pakistan, or CMPak, and its services were rebranded as "Zong" in 2008.

"More than four years ago, when we bought Paktel, it was on the brink of bankruptcy. Now the company can generate enough cash flow to maintain its operations," Wang said.

The Zong brand has seen the largest net growth in cellphone users in Pakistan in the past three years, according to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority. Zong had a user base of 13.2 million by October, rising from fewer than 1.5 million in 2007.

With Pakistan as an example, China Mobile intends to expand its operations to a greater number of emerging markets. The company is also seeking opportunities to become a minority shareholder in telecom carriers in the European or North American markets, said Wang.

Another aspect of China Mobile's globalization is to promote the homegrown Time Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) 4G technology to be adopted worldwide.

Compared with FDD-LTE, another 4G technology, the world has been slow to adopt TD-LTE technology. Five commercial TD-LTE networks have gone into operation in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Japan and Brazil - far fewer than the 33 FDD-LTE commercial networks that have been deployed around the world.

As a man who saw Chinese homegrown 3G technology failing to become truly international, Wang said China Mobile is going to support TD-LTE technology with all its strength. "If China Mobile finds opportunities that will help TD-LTE technology to go global, we will be interested in investing," Wang said.

The company is also actively promoting the convergence of TD-LTE and FDD-LTE technology. "I hope in the era of 4G nobody will have to talk about which wireless standard to choose because everyone will be able to access both TDD and FDD by using the same handset," Wang said.

The biggest challenge for China Mobile remains in the domestic market, as the "running elephant" starts to move at a much slower pace.

China Mobile posted a net profit rise of 5.2 percent to 125.9 billion yuan in 2011. Growth momentum in earnings picked up for the second straight year but at a much slower rate than it had in 2008 and in the years before that.

In the 3G market, China Unicom, the country's second-biggest telecom carrier, managed to outstrip China Mobile to have the biggest monthly net growth in its number of 3G users since last October. China Telecom Corp Ltd, the smallest carrier, is also growing quickly and became the second telecom carrier to introduce Apple Inc's iPhone series on contract on March 9.

In his farewell speech on March 22, Wang said his successor, Xi Guohua, a former vice-minister at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has rich leadership experiences in the telecommunication industry. Xi values corporate strategy research and is good at viewing things from all angles, Wang said.