Business news with words chinese+phone. 21 news.

The Chinese government said Wednesday that it had approved a plan for upgrading its mobile phone network for wireless broadband services.

MOBILE phone sales in China are forecast to reach 150 million units in 2007, up 23.1 percent year-on-year, CCID Consulting said yesterday. Sales volume, however, was expected to drop 0.3 percent to 166.1 billion yuan (US$22.66 billion) because more low-end mobile phones were sold during the period. The average price of a mobile in China dropped from 1,408 yuan in 2006 to 1,142 yuan this year. In addition, more than 20 percent of mobiles sold were less than 500 yuan, the CCID said. Li Xuefang, a CCID consultant, cited increased demand for tailored phones by mobile operators and rising low-end mobile users in rural areas as the main reasons for the price drop. Promotions by domestic manufacturers of mid- and low-end mobiles also brought down the general selling price, she added. In the third quarter of 2007, Chinese brand mobiles accounted for a 33.4 percent market share, up from 31.1 percent in the second quarter. CCID also predicted mobile sales, driven by rising low-end

COPPER futures declined in Shanghai, as some investors deemed a rally as overdone, even as they remained positive on the outlook for Chinese demand. "It's just a market correction after four straight days of strong gains, nothing has changed on the fundamental front," Yuan Fang, a trader at Shanghai East Asia Futures Co, said by phone yesterday. Copper for March delivery on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 490 yuan, or 0.8 percent, to close at 57,970 yuan (US$7,908) a metric ton. Copper gained by the exchange's trading limits on Monday and last Friday, Bloomberg News said. The metal for immediate delivery in Changjiang, Shanghai's biggest cash market, fell as much as 2.8 percent to 61,100 yuan a ton yesterday. "The outlook for demand is good because some processors will start stockpiling soon for the Lunar New Year," said Yuan. China's Lunar New Year starts February 6 and will last for a week. China, the world's biggest user of copper, imported

THE key word for the Chinese telecommunications market in 2007 is delay - with long-awaited events, 3G license issuance, carrier asset restructuring, China Mobile's domestic stock debut and commercial use of the home-grown 3G technology not taking place. Mobile was another keyword. Mobile carriers have been chopping away at the market shares of fixed-line operators, which may help China Mobile tilt the balance in its favor after its almost dominant position in the market. Generally speaking, the carriers spent less this year but they also expanded aggressively in emerging sectors, such as rural areas and broadband. By the end of October, the Chinese mainland's mobile phone user base totaled 531.44 million, adding 70.38 million in the first 10 months. But fixed-line users hit 370.68 million, adding only 2.89 million in the same period, according to the Ministry of Information Industry. "It's an unavoidable trend that the fixed-line carriers will face a drop in users on

THE number of Chinese broadband users has hit 122 million, the highest in the world, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing an official from the information industry authority. Sixty percent of the netizens surfed on the Internet via broadband, said Jiang Yaoping, vice minister of the ministry of information industry, at a work conference of China Telecommunications Corporation on Saturday. Last year, more than 30 percent of China Telecom's income came from non-phone services, rising from 5.5 percent in 2002, the report said. One-third of the new broadband users are farmers, where the demand for the service is high, China Telecom officials said. The increased user number boosted the non-voice income of fixed-phone carriers, accelerating the transformation of traditional phone carriers into comprehensive information service providers, the report said.

CHINA has granted a 400-million-yuan (US$54 million) government fund to develop mobile phone-based TV technology in the next three years, the Ministry of Science and Technology said yesterday on its Website. Chinese firms are developing homegrown mobile TV standards so that they do not need to pay high royalty fees to Western firms if people use their standards instead. "The fund is to finance the development from system research to end-equipment design and test process. That will help China establish a self-innovated mobile TV industry chain," the statement said. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television will be responsible for the project, according to the statement. That indicated SARFT and media groups will dominate the mobile TV technology, industry insiders said. Debate has raged on for a long time on whether media groups, such as Shanghai Media Group, or telecommunications operators, like China Mobile, should dominate the potentially big mobile TV

THE People's Insurance Company (Group) of China, or PICC, has agreed to invest 1.5 billion yuan (US$202 million) in Datang Mobile, the major developer of China's 3G mobile phone technology, Datang's parent firm said yesterday. The investment will finance the development of the long-awaited home-grown 3G technology TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access), and therefore hasten 3G licenses in China, industry insiders said. This is the biggest single investment by a Chinese insurance firm in telecommunications, Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group said yesterday. "It is an agreement between two giants and it will boost the development of the Chinese telecommunications industry and lead to further innovation," Wu Yan, PICC's president, said. Both sides declined to reveal what percentage of stake PICC will take in Datang Mobile. The company is developing the new mobile standard, from chip design to wireless base stations. "TD-SCDMA

CHINA'S unified short message code system, starting this month, will make the industry grow in a healthy way and the regulator will take measures to ensure it works, the Ministry of Information Industry said yesterday. A new mobile service provider code prefixed with 106 will be formally initiated to replace the current four-digit number from each telecom service provider in China, which went into effect on Saturday. Carriers including China Mobile, China Unicom, China Netcom and China Telecom will use the new code system for mobile phone and Little Smart users, whose user base has reached 600 million. The person-to-person SMS system won't be influenced by the change, but paid services such as ringtone downloads and mobile newspaper subscriptions will come under the new system. "A service provider can freely choose a cooperator among the four Chinese telecom service providers (under the new system) and bad behavior can be easily tracked," the ministry said in a

BYD, a Chinese battery maker, plans to list its mobile phone manufacturing unit in Hong Kong in an initial public offering that will raise up to $987m

A CONTRACT manufacturer of mobile phones for customers, including Motorola Inc, and its parent could raise as much as HK$7.7 billion (US$989 million) in a Hong Kong initial public offering. BYD Electronic and parent BYD Co are selling 550 million shares, equivalent to a 25-percent stake, at HK$10.75 to HK$14 each, according to an e-mail sent to international institutions, Bloomberg News reported. BYD Co, based in Shenzhen in south China, has more than doubled in Hong Kong trading this year on expectations it may profit for a sale of its handset-component unit. BYD Electronic, which competes with Foxconn International Holdings Ltd for contracts to make phones, is building production plants in China, Hungary and Romania to meet demand. BYD Electronic makes casings and keypads for Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co, the world's top two mobile-phone makers, Daiwa Institute of Research said in a November 23 report. The Chinese company also assembles phones for Illinois-based

DUO Guo has signed with Turner Broadcasting System to distribute its Cartoon Network mobile content in supermarkets and Metro stations in China, the Shanghai-based firm said yesterday. It will be the first time more than 500 million Chinese mobile phone users can get content through machines using technologies such as BlueTooth. In Shanghai, Cartoon Network's images, including the Powerpuff Girls, Tom & Jerry and Scooby-Doo, will be available for download, Duo Guo said in a statement, through Duo Guo's kiosks established in high-traffic areas such as WalMart and Carrefour. Both sides declined to reveal financial details of the agreement. "Turner is excited about the potential to bring the Cartoon Network brand closer to this huge audience via Duo Guo's direct-to-consumer business model," said Ringo Chan, Turner's vice president of wireless and interactive content, development and distribution. Duo Guo's services allows consumers to personally see, touch and play

WORLD-CLASS technologies and equipment are on display at the China International Industry Fair 2007 in Shanghai. The spotlight at the five-day fair, which closes tomorrow, includes energy-efficient products, smart robots and advanced automation equipment. Meanwhile, some interesting and useful applications based on information technology are already being practiced daily or will be launched in the future. They include an electronic traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, a faster wireless network and a mobile phone which can pay and tell whether a product is counterfeit. China Mobile, a sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, also displayed mobile payment applications at its show booth. Based on such RFID (radio frequency identification) technology, users can pay for ticket and bus fee through their handsets. "Through partners, we have integrated the chip with our SIM card and that will allow more users to enjoy the technology before the expo event," said Fang

WORLD-CLASS technology and equipment will be on display at the China International Industry Fair 2007 in Shanghai next week. ABB Ltd, a Zurich-based power grid and automation equipment maker, will unveil its latest robots powered by remote control. Operators can monitor the robot from their office rather than go to the working site in person, and analyze any malfunctions in time, said Tormod Gunleiksrud, head of ABB's China robotics division. ABB's robots are used in a wide range of industries like packaging and welding. It has a 30-percent market share in Chinese automobile assembly plants. The fair opens next Tuesday and ends on Saturday. Shanghai Commercial Investment Co, a municipal government-controlled investment arm, will take four high-tech companies to the fair, with products like Smart Mobile Application Phone, and chips that can make payments like a bank card or tell whether a product is counterfeit. "We are working with one of the country's top wine makers

If 2007 proves to be the year that the global telecoms industry woke up to the full potential of investment in emerging markets, 2008 is shaping up as the year when some of the sector's largest players formulate strategies for harnessing the power of the Chinese market, potentially one of the most lucrative for mobile phone services in the world.

The beleaguered internet phone company Skype has teamed up with Hutchison Whampoa's mobile network 3 to launch an internet voice mobile phone. The phone – manufactured by Chinese company Amoi – will look and work like a normal mobile phone but pressing a button will convert it to a “Skypephone”, allowing consumers to make free calls to other Skype customers It’s the first of a number of agreements that the company will strike with mobile network operators over the next few weeks. It is desperately trying to claw it back after it was said to have wiped

TWO Chinese phone handset makers, Ningbo Bird and Amoi Electronics, posted huge losses in the first three quarters compared with profitability a year ago. The companies, both listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, forecast a loss for the whole of 2007 as fierce competition increases in the market. Ningbo Bird posted a loss of 270 million yuan (US$36 million) in the first nine months, with the second-largest Chinese phone maker expecting a loss this year, compared with a net profit of 30.58 million yuan in 2006. Xiamen-based Amoi Electronics reported a loss of 460 million yuan in the first three quarters. "We expect the company to lose money in the whole year, though the fourth-quarter results will be much better," said Amoi, without providing detailed figures. The company earned 24.21 million yuan last year. Ningbo Bird's share price dropped 0.65 percent to 4.57 yuan and Amoi's price lost 4.37 percent to 5.25 yuan yesterday, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose

MOBILE phone makers will face a "shuffle" of market positions after China announced two weeks ago that it would relax license regulations for handset manufacturing. Put simply speaking it means that a heap of new players, most of them with unknown brands, will appear in the world's biggest cell phone market. China's State Council has abolished some 186 administrative examination and approval items covering mobile communication systems and terminals. The move indicates that the country will formally cancel the mobile phone production license examination and approval system, which started about a decade ago. Chinese companies intending to manufacture phones, had to have at least 200 million yuan (US$26.31 million) in registered capital and get approval from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Then, if they wanted to sell phones in China, manufacturing companies had to have their products quality tested and authorized by the Ministry of Information

CHINESE telecommunications companies may limit investment in third-generation services for mobile phones to prepare for the adoption of even faster wireless technologies, ABN Amro Holdings NV said. "There isn't a huge business case for 3G," Wendy Liu, ABN Amro's head of China research, told reporters in Hong Kong yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. "It makes sense for China to go directly to 4G as it may offer better returns on investments," she said. Chinese carriers may spend about US$20 billion building networks for 3G services, which allow faster downloads of video and music on mobile phones, CLSA Ltd Asian telecommunications research head Francis Cheung said in May. Fourth-generation services offer download speeds up to 14 times quicker than 3G. Investments for 4G are not expected to start until 2010, ABN Amro's Liu said. The technology may allow users to transfer data at 200 megabits per second, according to the Website of Alcatel-Lucent SA, the world's

RESEARCH In Motion, the developer of BlackBerry, will sell the popular e-mail phones in China by the end of this year through its distribution partner Alcatel Lucent, the companies said yesterday. It marks RIM's official entry into the world's largest cell phone market, and China Mobile will be the service provider. RIM has worked with China Mobile since last year on service issues but people can't yet buy BlackBerry phones in China. The first model offered to Chinese customers in foreign enterprises will be the BlackBerry 8700. Availability for domestic enterprise customers in key markets is expected to begin later this year, Alcatel Lucent said in a statement. TCL Communications, a major Chinese mobile phone manufacturer owning the brand Alcatel, will make the BlackBerry phones. Canada-based RIM had its share estimate raised to US$150 from US$125 at UBS AG after announcing the plan. RIM's stock advanced 9.8 percent to US$124.53 on Tuesday. "The BlackBerry platform

A group of phone companies has begun constructing the first undersea telecommunications cable directly linking China with the United States, a news report said Tuesday. The fiber-optic cable will go into operation next July ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's Xinhua News Agency said.