[科技前沿]中國移動擬推出100餘款3G手機

China Mobile plans 100 3G launches

China Mobile, the world's biggest wireless operator by subscribers, wants to introduce more than a hundred new phone models in China by the end of the year to entice more of its users to switch to third-generation services, its chairman Wang Jianzhou said.

Mr Wang said China Mobile, which has a user base of 493m, “still has a lot of room to develop” value-added services, such as music and games downloads, but is stymied by a lack of advanced devices that support China's home-grown TD-SCDMA standard for 3G services.

“There are some [TD-SCDMA handsets] currently but the volume is limited. What we need is millions and tens of millions [of handsets],” Mr Wang said.

While still the biggest of China's three telecommunications operators, China Mobile's grip on its market has slowly slipped since Beijing restructured the sector last year. China Mobile, which in December was still signing up nine of every 10 new subscribers in China, said last week its share of new subscribers dropped to 60 per cent.

This was partly because China Mobile was given a licence to operate a network using the untested TD-SCDMA technology while its two smaller rivals, China Telecom and China Unicom, were granted licences for more established international 3G standards. Mr Wang denied criticisms that technical problems with the network were hampering growth.

While there are more than 7,000 phone models that support GSM, the most popular mobile phone standard, as of June there were only 50 TD-SCDMA handset models, Mr Wang said. He hopes that number will rise to 200 models by the end of the year, and is turning to Taiwanese manufacturers to fill that gap.

China Mobile will work with Taiwan's HTC to develop smartphones and will fund part of the research and development costs, Mr Wang said. HTC is the world's biggest maker of phones using Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform.

HTC is expected to release a customised version of the Magic, a smartphone running on Google's Android platform, in China this year. Mr Wang said China Mobile planned to launch five more HTC models next year.

Mr Wang also said he “has great expectations of MediaTek”, Taiwan's chip design company, the biggest supplier of mobile phone chips to China. MediaTek plans to launch its first chips for smartphones soon.

China Mobile also announced that it would launch smartphones made by Dell, the world's number two computer maker, and Lenovo, China's biggest PC maker. Mr Wang said China Mobile was keen to launch more netbooks and electronic readers.

中國移動(China Mobile)董事長王建宙表示，希望到今年底在中國推出逾100款新手機，以吸引更多的用戶轉向3G服務。按用戶數量衡量，中國移動是全球最大的無線運營商。

王建宙表示，“仍有發展增值服務的大量空間”，比如音樂和遊戲下載，但受阻於缺乏支持中國本土3G標準TD-SCDMA的裝置。中國移動擁有4.93億用戶基礎。

王建宙稱：“目前有一些（TD-SCDMA手機），但數量有限。我們需要數百萬乃至數千萬（手機）。”

儘管仍然是中國3家電信運營商裏最大的一家，但是自去年中國政府重組電信業以來，中國移動的市場份額逐漸下降。中國移動上週表示，中國移動佔新增用戶的比例下降至60%。而在去年12月，每10個新增用戶中就有9個是中國移動的用戶。

這在一定程度上歸因於中國移動被授予未經考驗的TD-SCDMA技術牌照，而兩家規模較小的競爭對手中國電信(China Telecom)和中國聯通(China Unicom)則被授予更爲成熟的國際3G標準牌照。王建宙否認了TD-SCDMA網絡的技術問題阻礙了增長的說法。

王建宙表示，目前支持最常見的GSM技術的手機有7000多款，但截至今年6月，TD-SCDMA手機只有50款。他希望到今年底這一數量上升至200款，並正寄望臺灣製造商填補缺口。

王建宙表示，中國移動將與臺灣的宏達(HTC)合作開發智能手機，並將承擔部分研發成本。宏達是全球最大的使用微軟(Microsoft) Windows Mobile平臺的手機制造商。

人們預計宏達今年將在中國推出定製版的Magic——基於谷歌(Google)Android操作系統運行的智能手機。王建宙稱，中國移動計劃明年再推出5款HTC手機。

王建宙還表示，他“對臺灣聯發科技(MediaTek)寄予厚望”，這家芯片設計公司是中國大陸手機芯片最大的供應商。聯發科技計劃很快推出首款用於智能手機的芯片。

中國移動還宣佈，將推出由全球第二大電腦製造商戴爾(Dell)和中國最大的電腦製造商聯想(Lenovo)製造的智能手機。王建宙表示，中國移動非常希望推出更多的上網本和電子閱讀器。