China sees rapid increase in mobile phone export
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-07-06 16:33

China, the world's biggest mobile phone market, exported 51.01 million units of mobile phone sets during the first five months this year, up 57.7 percent year-on-year, while imports dropped by half, the latest customs figures show.

The mobile phone sets exported were valued at US$4.9 billion, up 103.8 percent over the same period of 2003, though overseas brands still dominated the domestic market, according to the figures.

The producers of the exported mobile phone sets are mostly joint ventures with Motorola, Siemens, Nokia, Ericsson accounting for 67 percent of GSM mobile phone units exported.

Motorola's exports of GSM and CDMA mobile phone units made up 26 percent, and 62 percent of China's total exports, respectively during the five month period. Siemens took 12 percent of the share of China's GSM mobile phone exports.

A total of 25.05 million units of the export went to the United States and Germany, about 49 percent of the overall export, making the two nations the two biggest overseas markets for China's mobile phone exports.

China exported 15.37 million units of mobile phones to the United States in the first five months, and 9.68 million units to Germany.

Leading home-grown GSM mobile phone brand Bird accounted for 2 percent of the total GSM phone units.

With the Republic of Korea (ROK) the major source of China's mobile phone imports, China imported 5.18 million units of mobile phone sets valued at US$610 million during the five months, down 51.7 percent and 56.8 percent, respectively.

China imported 2.51 million units of mobile phone sets from the ROK, accounting for 48.5 percent of the total imports, while their value stood at US$340 million, or 55 percent of the total.

China exported 95.23 million mobile phone units last year, which were valued at US$11.52 billion, making China the biggest exporter of mobile phone sets, according to the report issued by the country's General Administration of Customs.

China had about 300.56 million mobile phone subscribers by the end of May this year, rising from over 100 million in March 2001 and 200 million in November 2003, noted the Ministry of Information Industry in late June.

The figure exceeded that of fixed-line subscribers, which stood at 290.401 million, and rural areas accounted for 30 percent of the fixed-line phone subscribers.

China's mobile phone users outnumbered fixed-line phone subscribers in October 2003.

China imported its first mobile phone telecommunication facilities in 1987, and it took a decade for its number of subscribers to jump to 10 million by 1997.

Four years later, the number of China's mobile phone subscribers ranked the first in the world.

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