Foreign manufacturers of mobile phones, such as Motorola Inc and Nokia Oyj, are winning back market share from China's fast growing domestic handset producers by promoting cheaper models, a consulting firm reported yesterday.
Foreign rivals to the likes of China's TCL Corp have moved into the low-end phone sector where homegrown firms had recently come to dominate, said Analysys International, a Beijing-based IT company.
In the first quarter, the market share for Chinese firms dropped to 34 percent from about 40 percent in the three months to December as overseas firms introduced lower-priced products.
A year ago China's domestic makers controlled 45 percent of the mobile phone market.
Previously Motorola of the US, Finland's Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea focused on the high-end market, and while their products were popular in major cities, they quickly lost out to China's inexpensive manufacturers.
Now they are clawing back market share after focusing on the low-end sector.
Motorola, the world's number two handset maker, plans to launch more entry-level mobile phones in China costing as little as US$40 each, a quarter of current average handset prices in China.
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