China's Mobile Phone Industry to Be Boosted After WTO

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, November 27, 2001

China's Mobile Phone Industry to Be Boosted After WTO

China's mobile phone industry will take advantage of the country's WTO entry to grab more market shares, Wan Mingjian, the head of China's TCL Mobile Telecommunications Co. Ltd. vowed in Fuzhou. Tariffs on raw materials for mobile phones, especially CMOS chips, will be dropped as a result of WTO entry.

Dropping Tariff on Raw Materials Helpful

Wan Mingjian, TCL's general director, said that tariffs on raw materials for mobile phones, especially CMOS chips, will be dropped as a result of WTO entry.

This will benefit domestic mobile phone companies, who traditionally import CMOS chips.

Negative Effect of WTO Entry Groundless

In fact, China's mobile phone market has been open to overseas companies for so many years that domestic companies have never been fully protected by state preferential policies. Therefore, the WTO entry cannot negatively affect domestic mobile phone companies at all, Wan noted.

Currently, there are few technological differences between domestic mobile phones and those made overseas. In terms of function and price, the domestic mobile phones have the upper hand, Wu said.

The problem, according to Wu, is that some Chinese customers have blind faith in all things foreign, and it takes a long time for them to accept domestic products.

Domestic Mobile Phones Develop Quickly

Currently, foreign mobile phone giants including Nokia, Motorola and Siemens claim over 70 percent of the market share in China.

However, domestic mobile phone companies have developed rapidly in recent years, occupying the remaining 20-plus percent of the market.

Since the beginning of this year, more and more dealers and customers have started to buy domestic mobile phones. Sales of TCL mobile phones exceeded one billion yuan (about 125 million U.S. dollars) during the first eight months of this year, nearly six-fold over the same period last year.

TCL Holdings Co., Ltd., established in 1981, is a comprehensive large-scale state-owned enterprise. It is engaged in the business ranging from the R&D, manufacture and sales of electronics products and telecommunication products to that of information technology products.

After 20-year development, TCL has formed 4 series of products represented by TCL King color television in the industries of audio-visual products, telecommunication, information appliance and electrical components.

Moreover, the corporate strategy has began to transform from industry of traditional household appliance to that of IT-oriented electronics information with the core competitiveness of 3C convergence.

Click Here for More About TCL Holdings Co., Ltd.

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