Business Briefs

Ningbo sells well in China
Ningbo Bird Co (寧波波導) is the first Chinese mobile-phone maker to sell more handsets in China than overseas rivals Motorola Inc and Nokia Oyj, the South China Morning Post said, citing China's Ministry of Information Industry data.

Ningbo Bird sold 15 percent of the mobile phones bought in China in the six months to June 30, pushing Motorola, which sold 14.2 percent, into second place, the paper said.

Local brands, including Ningbo and TCL Mobile Communication, sold 55.3 percent of the mobile phones in China in the first half, the report said. TCL ranked third with 11.6 percent, followed by Nokia with 9.7 percent, the paper said.

Chinese mobile-phone manufacturers produced 82.2 million handsets in the first half and sold 80 million, including 36.9 million overseas, the paper said. Average prices for handsets have fallen as phone makers have cut prices to increase market share, it said.

About one-fifth of BenQ's shipment goes to China.

BenQ targets to sell about 15 million handsets this year after shipping more than 6 million in the first half, Lee Kun-yao (李焜耀), head of the company, said in May.

Employment plan flops
The government's plan to pay companies to hire a total of 25,000 unemployed workers failed to strike the right note, as only 403 were hired since the project activated on June 18, an official from the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

"Many companies are still unclear about the plan," said Chen Mao-shun (陳茂順), associate manager of the ministry's Small and Medium Enterprise Administration. "We have to continue promoting it."

The plan, which aims to cut the jobless rate by 0.3 percent before the end of the year, offers NT$10,000 per month to companies that hire one unemployed worker who has registered with the Council of Labor Affairs. The subsidy is good for up to 12 month.

Employers actually showed high interest in the project that sent out 33,124 applications, said Day Sheng-tung (戴勝通), chairman of the National Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (中小企業協會).

But the problem is that they found out there were few workers equipped with English or computer skills that companies were needed in the pool for them to hire, Day said.

BenQ says July sales up
BenQ Corp (明基電通), said July sales rose 47 percent from a year earlier and up 30 percent from the previous month.

Sales rose to NT$9.5 billion (US$275 million) from NT$6.4 billion. Sales increased from NT$7 billion in the previous month, the company said, citing an increased shipment in LCD monitors and optical storage devices.

Sampo announces aim
Sampo Corp (聲寶) expects to ship 100,000 plasma display panel television sets this year, ranking it among the world's top three suppliers on an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) basis, it was reported yesterday.

Sampo CEO Ho Heng-chun (何恆春) said that PDP TV shipments this year are expected to generate sales of up to NT$8.0 billion (US$232 million).

The company's consolidated sales in the seven months to July stood at NT$13.18 billion.

Next year, Sampo expects to ship 200,000 PDP TVs, or about 10 percent of such deliveries worldwide, he said.

NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, up NT$0.020 to close at NT$34.446 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$347 million.