Motorola Inc, the world's second largest handset maker, aims to regain its lead in the Chinese market by introducing a series of new handsets soon targeting a cross-section of customers.

The effort is made as part of its global effort to consolidate its market share and get a better position while fighting rivals such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and LG.

"We are doing quite well in many markets and the momentum is great," said Ronald Garriques, president of Motorola's Personal Communications Sector.

He expected cellphone sales to grow faster than the overall market in 2005.

During last week's 3G World Congress in Hong Kong, Motorola announced it would make five new handsets available for Christmas.

The 3G (third generation) phones are E1000, A1000, V980, C980 and C975.

Available through the Vodafone Live! and Hutchison Whampoa 3G network, the new handsets all offer lighter, compact designs, improved battery life and rich camera quality maintaining picture-perfect large screens, according to the company.

Both Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa will offer the Motorola E1000. Vodafone will also exclusively offer the Motorola V980 and C980.

Hutchison Whampoa will offer the Motorola A1000 and C975.

Motorola will also support Orange across Europe as it enters the 3G consumer market.

"Time is everything. All the new handsets will be made available in the fourth quarter of the year," Garriques said.

He boasted that the company expects its sales of third-generation handsets based on the European WCDMA standard to surpass those based on the second-generation GSM standard in 2008.

According to Garriques, new technologies such as location-based services and fingerprint recognition technology will become the selling points of the new handsets.

Motorola showcased its technologies and handset solutions, including video calls, high speed data access, push to talk/view service and dynamic portals at the 3G World Congress.

For example, dynamic portals are an innovative new solution providing mobile customers with zero-click access to the most current information - right on the screen of their 3G phone.

Subscriptions to premium content, such as news, sports, entertainment and weather, are combined with operator promotional offerings and services, including the latest ringtones, games and wallpaper.

"For the Chinese market, a number of new handsets tailoring to the low-end market will also be launched during Christmas and the Chinese New Year," said Garriques, stressing that China is a major focus for handset makers.

With 320 million subscribers, all international giants must play a part in it if they want to be truly competitive.

Sony Ericsson, for example, announced last month that it is going to unveil two new handsets especially for the low-end market.

Low prices and localized marketing strategies are gradually becoming another effective weapon for foreign handset makers in their competition with domestic vendors.

Many international handset vendors such as Motorola and Nokia are regaining strong momentum in the domestic market by launching new products and lowering handsets prices.

Garriques believed that domestic handset makers should try to enlarge their scale and pursue very profitable niche markets.

He added Motorola Inc currently has no intention of conduct mergers or acquisitions with domestic handset markers.

(China Daily November 23, 2004)