14 DAY TRIAL // China is getting ready for its upcoming 3G networks, which will be deployed by all three carriers in the country, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, and the market is expected to represent a great opportunity for mobile phone makers to boost their sales. Nokia, the world's largest handset vendor, already made a step in this direction, and recently launched in China a number of 11 handsets that included support for the 3G technology.
According to DigiTimes, nine of the newly unveiled devices in the country feature support for WCDMA, while one of them is a CDMA EVDO-enabled product, the Nokia 8208. In addition, the company also launched a new 2G handset in China, namely the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, a device that comes with built-in WLAN connectivity, and is reported to be the first of the kind launched by Nokia in the country.
It seems that the Finnish mobile phone maker plans to subcontract the production of WCDMA-enabled handsets on an OEM basis to EMS, while also outsourcing the CDMA EVDO production on an ODM basis to Foxconn International Holdings (FIH), or at least this is what market sources have suggested. At the same time, the company is reported to be working with chipset solution vendors for the development of TD-SCDMA-enabled phones, which means that it tries to come to the Chinese market with devices supporting all three 3G standards in the country.
In related news, we learn that the recently launched Ovi Store is expected to see a Chinese version in 2010. Given the fact that there are currently more than 180 million Nokia users in China, and that future previsions suggest their number might be on the rise with the launch of the 3G networks, it does not come as a surprise that the company will try to extend the service in the area.
At the same time, China's mobile Internet service market has seen a continuous rising trend during the past few years, and the country might turn into an important revenue source for the mobile phone maker's portal. According to sources at Nokia Greater China, the company expects the Mobile Internet demand to rise a lot in the near future, which means that the move would be logical, especially since China Telecom and China Mobile already announced plans to come up with WLAN hot-spot networks.