Taiwanese mobile-phone makers are set to ship out nearly 25 percent of the global GPRS handsets in the second half of this year, according to the latest statistics from the Market Intelligence Center (
The report said in the second half of this year, the nation's handset manufacturers such as BenQ Corp (
"Taiwan has become a major production partners for international handset brands like Motorola Inc and Sony Ericsson, especially in manufacturing advanced products," said Feng Lin (林育烽), an telecom analyst at the center.
GPRS is a wireless standard optimally supposed to transmit data at 115kbps (kilobits per second), 10 times faster than traditional mobile data services.
Since making GPRS phone requires sophisticated design and production skills, the increasing GPRS shipments from Taiwan demonstrates that the nation's production capability is gaining international recognition, Lin said.
Some Motorola handsets are currently being made by BenQ and Compal, Sony Ericsson handsets by GVC Corp (
"Under time to market considerations, leading international vendors are increasing placing contract designing and manufacturing orders of high-end mobile phones such as the third-generation (3G) phones to Taiwanese manufacturers," Lin said.
Total shipments of Taiwan-made handsets are expected to hit 27 million units this year -- a 109 percent increase over last year, while the production value may show an increase of 92.6 percent year-on-year, according to thecenter.
* Handset manufacturers are expected to produce 15.8 million cellphones in the second half of this year, of which 35 percent will be GPRS units.
* Total shipments of Taiwan-made handsets are expected to hit 27 million units this year -- a 109 percent increase over last year.
"The lowered growth rate of the shipment value compared with that of shipment volume is a result of international vendors' moves to undercut each other by lowering prices, which has in turn narrowed Taiwanese makers' profit margin," Lin said.
Local manufacturers should therefore focus more on higher margin products such as GPRS, color screen and multimedia message service (MMS) handsets, he said.
MMS allows users to send multimedia pictures, moving images as well as music files between their cellphones. Handsets with advanced entertainment functions are likely to dominate the mobile market next year.
"Color screen and MMS service handsets will become a mainstream next year," said Irwin Chen (
Over 30 percent of handset shipments will soon be color-screen mobile phones, he said.
BenQ is scheduled to ship out its first color-screen handsets in the second half of next year.
By year's end, Taiwanese handset makers are predicted to hold about 6.8 percent of the global market, the center said.
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