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Eying Lucractive 3G, Great Wall Dips Toe in Mobile Phone(Comtex Business Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) BEIJING, Jan 03, 2007 (SinoCast China IT Watch via COMTEX) --Great Wall, which has never set its foot in the communication terminals arena, is about to serve up its new generation of 3G mobile phones. The Beijing-headquartered conglomerate has assigned a chief to take charge of its mobile phone business and is poised to let loose its self-branded mobile phones around the coming February, confirmed an employee familiar with the matter. Started with PC, Great Wall married into China Electronics Corporation (CEC), thus catapulting itself into the recently- recovered mobile phone market. After CEC took over the global mobile phone business of Philips, market talks have been rampant that the newly-acquired business will be brought under the wings of Great Wall. Huang Maoqing, a market supervisor for Great Wall Computer (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. gave a steadfast denial, however. "Great Wall has established its own mobile phone unit and is scheduled to take over Philips' global mobile phone operation", noted Yang Ping, an assistant to the market division of Great Wall, in an interview with ChinaByte journalists. Moreover, the company is in active application for its self-owned brand, with corresponding registration expected to come to an end in months. Its self-branded mobile phones are probably come into the market around May of 2007, continued Ms. Yang. Additionally, Ms. Yang refuted widespread rumors that Great Wall may sell its PC business to Lenovo after its business expansion by saying such a thing can not take place, and Great Wall will still lay its emphasis on PC. At the earlier stage, the newly-established mobile phone unit of Great Well will primarily produce Philips-branded mobile phones as an OEM service provider and offer mobile phone chips for a number of mobile phone makers like Nokia, a well-informed employee was quoted as saying. If such talks are true, it is only a matter of time before Great Wall takes control of Philips' mobile phone operation, including the team responsible for designing mobile phone chips under the flag of Shenzhen SangFei Consumer Communications Co., Ltd., a joint venture between the former CEC and Philips. Great Wall's involvement in mobile phone business is commonly regarded as an effort to help CEC consolidate its industries, citing CEC still has not a powerful brand, even though both the magnate itself and Putian have boasted production scale of over 20 million sets for now. Behind the involvement is also the recovery of the operation of Chinese homegrown mobile phone makers and another round of investment upsurge in Chinese Mainland's mobile phone market. 10-strong Chinese homegrown mobile phone makers have made profits in the first fiscal quarter of 2006. Konka, for instance, returned to profits and delightedly posted sales revenues of CNY 428 million and gross profit margin of 16.61%. At the very moment, investors can not help but ignite another round of investment spree. In April of 2006, Beijing- based mobile phone distributor named Beijing Tianyu Langtong launched its self-branded mobile phones. Just one year after its success in obtaining a license, Skyworth Mobile announced its decision to scale up its investment in the mobile phone market. On October 18, 2006, Shenzhen Clove Communication Equipment Co., Ltd., which is founded by a former senior executive of Gionee, announced the commissioning of the first phase of its mobile phone production base in Dongguan with annual capacity of 2 million sets and the beginning of the second phase with a total investment of CNY 70 million. From China Business, Page 1, Tuesday, January 02, 2007 [email protected] Copyright (C) 2007 SinoCast LLC. All rights reserved |