Price avalanche predicted for camera phones
16/7/2003 15:02
Industry insiders forecasted steep price plunges are probably to
spread to camera-inserted mobile phones, the high-end sector of China's phone
market, today's Xinhua said.
Yesterday, German phone maker Siemens unveiled
its latest model M55, which is equipped with nearly all the high-end facilities
as digital cameras, color display and multimedia messaging function, at a price
below 2,000 yuan (US$242), similar to most of low-to-middle-end products on the
phone market.
Previous to the launch, TCL Group, a leading domestic phone
maker, announced to mark down the price of its U2/U3 camera-inserted phone by
more than 300 yuan last Friday to the record low of 1,700 yuan on China's camera
phone market.
In comparison, most of camera-equipped handsets sell between
3,000 and 4,000 yuan in China.
It is the huge market potential of the
high-end phone product in China that has pushed the phone makers to adopt the
low-price strategy, industry insiders said.
Aiming to take the advantage of
the increasing number of China's phone users who are planning for a change or
upgrade of phone, the makers are hoping to draw more users in the high-end
sector.
In Japan, sales of camera-inserted phones accounted for 89 percent of
the total in the first half-year, while in China, the ratio remained at short of
10 percent.
Camera-inserted phones will become the trend for China's phone
market in the second half-year, said Wu Jiacai, general manager of Xieheng
M-Phone Equipment Co Ltd, a leading mobile phone chain retailer in
Shanghai.
Predicting the price of these phones to shed another 500 yuan, he
said a price avalanche might occur to the phones when variety available reaches
20 to 30.
Currently, there are a dozen choices of camera phones on the
market.
Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news
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