Sunday October 28, 5:54 AM
Wireless expo thrills, teases low-spending Chinese
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By Jonah Greenberg
BEIJING (Reuters) - Gao Xiaoguang glowed with excitement after watching himself on the screen of the latest video-enabled mobile phone, shown at China's top wireless fair over the weekend.
"This is the first time I've ever seen this kind of thing!" said Gao, 47, who works for a computer company in Beijing.
Foreign mobile giants at the biennial PT/Wireless & Networks expo, including top two firms Nokia and Motorola Inc, gave Chinese their first-ever glimpse of third-generation (3G) cellphones, which work 10 to 30 times faster than today's cellphones.
For many students and out-of-towners, the 3G phones -- which show users a clear, moving picture of the person at the other end and download bulky data files in seconds -- were a sign of the splendour China's rapid economic development has to offer.
But time appeared to stand still at the fair, where few truly new gadgets could be found and much of what was on display will elude consumers for years while operators are expected to drag their feet on funding costly upgrades needed to power 3G phones.
LACK OF PURCHASING POWER
Some faces wore signs of disappointment, having slogged through the fair's eight halls of beeping and flashing gadgets.
Robert Mao, chief executive officer of Nanjing-based soft switch maker LodeSoft, said he had found nothing new at the expo, because he had already seen 3G videophones at an industry gathering in Hong Kong nearly a year ago.
"It definitely has to do with the market," said Mao, who had travelled from the southern city of Nanjing for the fair. "There just isn't the demand here, because in China people don't have purchasing power."
Price erosion for cellphones in China has added to the woes of the industry, already humbled by fallen stock valuations last year and by landmark quarterly losses for some this year, industry executives have said.
Although China is a powerhouse of demand -- and the world's largest cellphone market with 140 million subscribers -- consumers seek cheaper handsets, prompting industry leaders like Motorola to focus on designing low-end handsets.
"3G" YEARS AWAY IN CHINA
The frustration of seeing what you cannot have embittered Wang Bohai, 22, soon after he volunteered for a demonstration of a Panasonic brand videophone, made by Matsuhita Communications Industrial Co Ltd.
"The networks haven't even been built yet," said Wang, an engineer at telecommunications gear maker Shanghai Bell -- set to become Alcatel Shanghai Bell in a landmark takeover announced last week. "This definitely won't be available for a good while."
Most analysts think 3G services will come to the market in late 2003 or 2004, although No. 2 cellular carrier China Unicom Group has begun testing CDMA 2000 technology, one of three rival 3G standards carriers in China are eyeing.
LICENCES NOT ISSUED
But the billion-dollar upgrades may give way to an interim technology called GPRS (general packet radio service) -- or 2.5G -- which China Mobile Communications Corp, the country's dominant cellular carrier, has said it will offer some time this year.
Neither of the state-owned carriers, with their Hong Kong-listed arms China Mobile (HK) Ltd and China Unicom Ltd, have secured 3G licences from the government, for which European carriers paid billions last year.
"It's nice to see what these cellphones will look like. But I just don't know when we will be able to buy them," said a girl whose boyfriend accompanied her to the expo. |
