Friday March 26 1999
VTech set to make its first GSM mobile
YVONNE CHAN and BLOOMBERG
Hong Kong may be the world's mobile-phone capital but, surprisingly, no local company produces a handset for the popular GSM frequency.
That situation will change when electronics firm VTech - one of the world's biggest makers of cordless phones - rolls out its first GSM mobile handset later this year.
The company said it had already tied up a deal to supply up to US$10 million of phones to British Telecom and is in talks with Deutsche Telekom.
The phones will be designed and manufactured by VTech, but carry the brand names of the companies that order them.
The VTech phone was unveiled at the recent CeBit electronics show held in Germany.
A company spokesman said feedback from people who visited the show would help determine the scale of production.
VTech does not intend to compete directly with the industry giants Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola, but will probably seek to undercut rivals in the market's second tier in which phones wholesale for between $90 and $160 each.
The mainland and Taiwan both have domestic handset brands which offer cheaper, albeit lower-status, alternatives to imported models.
The introduction of the phone was a coup for VTech, the first Hong Kong company to unveil a GSM phone, said K.F. Tsang, a researcher in the electronic engineering department at City University.
VTech succeeded where rivals failed in part because its senior management were trained engineers.
"In European countries this is no big deal," Mr Tsang said. "In Hong Kong it is a great event."
VTech, which has factories in Dongguan, has previously manufactured mobile phones as part of a joint venture with Nokia. |
