CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Weighed down by rising costs and fierce competition, China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone carrier by number of subscribers posted a 2.7 percent profit increase last year.

iLACKING: The company is also hobbled because its network, which runs its homegrown third-generation TD-SCDMA technology, does not support Apple's iPhone. Rivals China Unicom and China Telecom have an edge because they use a different network standard that allows them to offer the smartphone, which is wildly popular in China.

TECH RACE: The company said it has been working to speed up the roll out of its faster fourth-generation TD-LTE, or "long-term evolution," network technology, which may be able to support new iPhone models.