Corporate Background
A pioneer in mobile communications, ABC was founded by Mr. George Ho, founder of Hong Kong's first commercial broadcasting station. The Group commenced business in Hong Kong in 1971 as one of Asia's first wireless messaging operators. It co-founded in 1992 SmarTone Telecommunications Limited, which launched Asia's first GSM service in Hong Kong. In the nineties, the Group has also made strategic investments in a number of leading mobile service operators in the region including Taiwan cellular operator Far Eastone. The Group is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ( Stock Code 30).
Through the years, ABC pioneered many real-time wireless data services including a cooperative project with Reuters to launch Asia's first alphanumeric forex and gold pager in 1984; the territory's first real-time stock pager in 1986; in 1990 another first - a wireless horse-racing data service under licence from the Hong Kong Jockey Club; and in early 1997, Asia's first high-speed wireless data service, QuickSilver, that delivered financial updates several times faster than any other wireless product then on the market.
Following the disposal of its more mature telecommunications investments in Hong Kong, ABC has since 1999 evolved from a pure mobile services company to a technology Group with close to 80% of its staff engaged in software development and information technology. The Group currently has two principal operating subsidiaries.
QuotePower International Limited is a financial technology company run by talents drawn from the financial markets and the information technology industry to provide real-time financial information and electronic transaction platforms to the financial markets.
ABC QuickSilver Limited is a focused wireless applications developer backed by a development team with unrivalled experience in mobile communications technologies and software development. The Company provides enterprise solutions and consumer applications for wireless PDAs and mobile handsets.
Milestones
| 1971 | Commenced business in Hong Kong, providing operator-assisted paging service on tone pagers. |
| Early 1980's | Introduced numeric and alpha-numeric pagers to Hong Kong market. |
| 1980's | Firmly established as one of Hong Kong's major paging operators, with a leading position in the corporate market and a reputation for high service quality. |
| 1984 | Launched Asia's first forex and gold paging service in collaboration with Reuters. |
| 1986 | Launched Hong Kong's first real-time stock pager. |
| 1990 | Introduced Hong Kong's first horse-racing pager. |
| 1991 | Made strategic investments in paging operations in South East Asian countries and Taiwan. |
| October 1991 | Listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. |
| 1992 | Co-founded SmarTone Telecommunications Limited which won a licence to provide GSM cellular service in Hong Kong. |
| June 1992 | Launched a cross-border roaming service to Guangdong (extended to cover Shanghai subsequently), on a dual-frequency pager, the first of its kind in the world. |
| 1993 | Invested in the paging market of Vietnam. |
| October 1996 | Listing of SmarTone on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. |
| 1997 | Pioneered a high-speed financial paging service under the service name 'QuickSilver'. |
| 1997 | Invested in Taiwan's cellular consortium Far Eastone Telecommunications Limited and paging consortium Hoyard (now re-named as Savecom International Inc.) at the liberalization of Taiwan's telecommunications markets. |
| March 1998 | Divested more than 95% of the group's stake in Smartone for HK$1.17 billion. Subsequent disposals of substantially all SmarTone holdings between 1999 and 2003 netted additional proceeds of approximately HK$59 million. Returns amounted to 41 times the original investment cost of HK$30 million. |
| July 1999 | Sold Hong Kong paging business in the face of the continued erosion of paging due to cellular substitution. |
| December 1999 | Acquired QuotePower, a technology provider in financial information services and electronic trading platform. |
| 2000 - 2001 | Divested paging investments in Vietnam and S.E. Asia. |
| Early 2001 | Increased stake in Far Eastone by taking up share options in the company for an aggregate sum of approximately HK$98.8 million. |
| Early 2001 | Invested in e-Access, a newly formed provider of broadband services in Japan, at an investment cost of approximately US$5 million. |
| December 2001 | Listing of Far Eastone's shares on the Gre Tai Securities Market of Taiwan. |
| October 2003 | Listing of e-Access' shares on the MOTHERS Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. |
| 2002-2004 | Divestments of substantially all Far Eastone shares for an aggregate sum of NTD1,283 million or approximately HK$292 million, on an investment cost of NTD553.7 million or approximately HK$136.6 million. |
| November 2004 | eAccess listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. |
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December 2005 - | Invested approximately HK$49 million in eMobile, a new mobile licensee in Japan and a subsidiary of eAccess. |
| August 2008 | Divestments of all passive investments and properties and acquisition of ABC by Asian Gold Dragon. |