Cheng Lixin, ZTE's president for North America, said that the company plans to launch high-end smartphones for the U.S. in 2012.

Chinese telecom operator China Unicom, which currently is an official reseller of the Apple iPhone, has launched its self-developed smartphone operating system, Wophone, which the company claims to be the first smart terminal operating system with independent intellectual property rights in China.

China Telecom plans to establish a product center and will set up six content bases in five cities in China to develop a wider array of 3G software applications.

Microsoft and over 90 mobile communication partners have jointly announced at a conference held in Beijing that the first batch of 17 types of Windows phones will be launched in China at the end of 2009.

Chinese telecom operator China Telecom has published a report stating that it will recruit core cooperative partners for its online mobile phone application store.

During China Telecom's recent meeting for the placement of 3G handset orders, Xiao Chaojun, vice president of Beijing Tianyu Communication Equipment, positioned the company's product lines into three tiers, with the aim of becoming one of the top five handset makers in the world within three years.

A development platform named xFace, which is jointly built by the China Telecom Sichuan branch and a Chengdu local technology corporation, has been launched.

China TechFaith (CNTF) and Qigi, a Chinese smartphone brand, will launch four new high-end smartphones for China Telecom and China Unicom customers in the second quarter of 2009.

China Mobile (CHL) has reached an agreement with Microsoft (MSFT) to pre-install Microsoft's Windows Mobile Internet Explore 6 browser in the Samsung Omnia handsets sold by China Mobile.

Chinese mobile handset company Ramar will embed the GyPSii location and social networking application on the forthcoming range of the company's "amsam" Windows Mobile devices.

After specializing in China's mobile phone operating system for up to six years, Microsoft (MSFT) has now begun to try to increase its market share in the mobile phone operating system market through cooperation with D.Phone, one of the largest mobile phone retailers in China.