500 Million Mobiles to be Made in China

Following Nokia's bold prediction that 1.2 billion mobile handsets will be shipped next year, it appears that nearly half of them will be made in China. According to figures slipping out from the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry, the country is likely to produce nearly 500 million mobile phones this year alone, or more than 40% of the global total. This figure, in turn, is said to be 41% higher than the 2006 output. At least 80% of the handsets produced in China this year will be exported the Ministry said.

On the other hand, home-grown producers actually saw their share of the Chinese market for mobile phones fall from 35.8% in 2006, to 33.8% during the first nine months of 2007. The 38 registered mobile handset makers in China reportedly sold 78.7 million mobile phones in their domestic market by the end of September 2007. According to reports something of a price war has broken out between domestic and foreign-owned companies, with the Chinese manufacturers beginning to feel threatened by cheaper models from foreign-based competitors.

Meanwhile, the makers of the BlackBerry handset, Canadian-based RIM, said that its mobile e-mail devices will go on sale in China by the end of this month. The handsets will be sold exclusively by the dominant mobile company China Mobile and built in China by China, TCL Communications.