Ericsson Plans to Make Faster CDMA Cell Phones for China United
By Kenneth Wong
Boao, China, April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Ericsson AB, the world's biggest maker of mobile-phone network equipment, plans to make code division multiple-access mobile phones in China as it tries to boost handset sales to offset network spending cuts by cell phone operators in the biggest wireless market.
Ericsson, which sold more than $200 million of CDMA network equipment last year to China United Telecommunications Corp., China's only operator of a nationwide network using the Qualcomm Inc. technology, will make CDMA phones through its mobile-phone venture with Sony Corp. that are faster than those available in China, said Jan Malm, President of Ericsson (China) Co.
``We're already a little late to make phones on the current standard. So we won't do that,'' Malm said in an interview. Ericsson will make phones that use CDMA2000-1X, the standard China United is upgrading its three-month-old $2.5 billion network to in the second half of this year.
Almost all of China's 156 million cell phone users use the competing global system for mobile communications -- or GSM -- standard, for which Ericsson claims as much as a 40 percent share in China's equipment market. Still, both China United and China Mobile Communications Corp. have announced spending cuts on equipment this year.
``It was a record year in China last year,'' Malm said. ``This year will be slower when it comes to investments by operators, but we're still optimistic.''
Ericsson didn't say whether it has received government approval to make the CDMA phones. There are 19 licensed CDMA mobile phone makers in China, including Motorola Inc. Malm declined to say when the first CDMA phones will be made.
Ericsson is conducting trials for China United's planned CDMA2000-1X network, supplying equipment in Chengdu in central Sichuan province. |
