Asia Express - Mobile Communications
NEC, Kyocera Adjusting Mobile Phone Operations in China
September 30, 2005
NEC and Kyocera both have plans to increase handset sales in China by reducing costs and enhancing development efficiency. NEC, having outsourced their handset development business to other companies, hopes to cut 20% to 30% of development costs by limiting the number of chipsets and other components these companies can use in the company's mobile phones. NEC also intends to increase its handset shipment volume in China to three million units in 2005, which would represent 50% annual growth. Kyocera has decided to outsource handset production to Chinese makers instead of producing mobile phones itself in Japan. The company plans to focus on value-line models, and it expects to achieve a shipment volume of one million units in the fiscal year 2005.