Nokia may seek new local deals

The company said it expected to have shipped 1 million CDMA-based mobile phones, largely to China, in 2003.

Arima does not produce CDMA-based handsets, but will not rule out the possibility of developing them in the future, said Howard Huang, (黃厚銘), a deputy spokesman for Arima.

CDMA is the second most widely-used wireless network standard in the world behind GSM, in which Nokia holds a strong market position. CDMA cellphones, mostly used in North America, Japan, South Korea and parts of China, only constitute 20 percent of the global handset market.