BEIJING - After five years
of development, mobile phone industry has become a key
pillar to prop up the sustained development of China's
information industry and the expansion of its foreign
trade.
China now has become the world's largest
mobile phone production base, said Lou Qinjian, vice
minister of the information industry. Industry.
Statistics show that China's mobile phone output
added up to nearly 500 million sets between 1999 and
2003, generating 500 billion yuan in sales revenue and
US$20 billion in exports.
By the end of 2003,
its mobile phone production capacity had made up 50% of
the world's total, and mobile phone output accounted for
40%.
The number of mobile phone models on the
market had surpassed 1,000.
Since this year,
China has produced 143 million sets of mobile phones and
exported more than 100 million sets.
Chinese
mobile phone industry has made substantial progress in
the five years, due to joint efforts of government,
enterprises and domestic and foreign investors, the vice
minister said.'
At present, foreign investors
have accelerated the technological transfer and building
of R&D centers while expanding investment scale.
Foreign investment in China has reached US$6 billion and
their R&D investment reached $700 million.
Meanwhile, domestic mobile phone enterprises
have grown up. Home-made mobile phones had clinched a
share above 50% again on the Chinese market in the first
half of this year after the they dominated the market
for the first time at the end of last year with a share
of 55%.
Sales of mobile phones on the domestic
market accumulated to 50.02 million sets in the first
half.
Among them, foreign brands are almost
absent, except for Nokia, Motorola and Samsung.
Ningbo-based Bird continued to be the No1 home
brand with a share of 9.48%, and other home-brands as
Konka, Haier and Dbtel each clinched a market share of
4-5%.
China now has 37 mobile phone producers,
including 15 domestic producers and 22 foreign-funded
ones.
(Asia Pulse/XIC)
Oct 23, 2004
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