According to a report in the Financial Times, TCL will restructure its mobile phone joint venture with Alcatel as it lags behind in pricing and developing new technology. The restructuring will involve moving R&D work from France to China in order to save costs and merging the joint venture with TCL Mobile, which is TCL's own mobile phone unit. Originally this merger was to be completed within three years since the joint venture's start of operations in 2004, but TCL has now decided to make this move ahead of schedule. In May 2005, Alcatel announced it would change its 45% stake in the joint venture into a 5% holding in TCL Communication Technology.