The government's recent decision to make a U-turn on a plan to lift a ban on the importation of China-made handsets was met with mixed reactions by analysts yesterday.
The Board of Foreign Trade, expected to announce the lifting of a ban on China handset imports this month, put the plan on an indefinite hold Tuesday.
The move would have allowed entry-level Chinese cellphones to be shipped into Taiwan, while color-screen, high-speed transmission GPRS (general packet radio system) handsets would not be allowed ashore.
The change in policy came after Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufactures' Association (
The association is a group representing several local handset makers, including BenQ Corp (
Under Chinese regulations, Taiwanese phone-makers are not permitted to sell handsets under their own brand names in China.
One exception is DBTEL, which obtained a permit to sell its phones in China prior to that nation's WTO entry.
"The Chinese government protects domestic telecom companies very well, therefore the ban is not expected to be lifted soon," said Sonia Lu (
In accordance with China's WTO-entry agreement, the barrier to imports is slated to end within the next three to five years, Lu said. "However, China has never revealed a timetable for the change," she said.
While the banning on China-made handsets helps local manu-facturers of entry-level handsets to protect their market share, mobile-phone retailers and consumers lose access to more low-priced handsets, analysts said.
Yet the real battle among handset makers is over market share, a market watcher said.
"The government plans to open entry-level markets, and that sector is worth fighting for," said Wang Ying-yu (
Entry-level products account for 50 percent of Taiwan's handset sales, he said.
Some 5.5 million mobile phones were sold in Taiwan last year, of which first-tier products priced higher than NT$13,000 accounted for 10 percent, middle-tier handsets priced between NT$7,000 to NT$13,000 were some 40 percent, while the remaining 50 percent were entry-level phones priced below NT$7,000.
Competition in the entry-level cellphone sector will continue to be tough.
"With many handset companies choosing to mainly manufacture color-screen mobile phones this year, they will be under pressure to clear their inventories of black-and-white handsets," Wang said.
Therefore, more price-cut activities are expected and will make the entry-level markets more competitive, he said.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS