Qiao Xing Universal Telephone, Inc. today announced that on June 18, 2004, it formed a joint venture company, Huizhou Qiao Xing Celbon Communication Technology Co. Ltd., with Celbon of Korea.
Qiao Xing 's subsidiaries, Qiao Xing Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. and Huizhou Qiao Xing Communication Industry, Ltd., respectively hold 51% and 5% in the JV. Celbon holds 34% and the remaining 10% is held by Galbo Enterprises Limited, the minority shareholder of Qiao Xing Mobile Communications Co., Ltd.
The JV will be principally engaged in the R&D, production and distribution of mobile phones, core chips, modules and PCBA for both wired and wireless communication terminal products. Its outputs are licensed to be sold domestically in China and for export to overseas countries.
Celbon is a company specializing in the development of core chips for GSM phones. It operates research institutes for the R+D of GSM phones core chips technologies in the USA. The cooperation will see the establishment of the core chips research and development, processing and distribution base for the JV in China, the operation of which is expected to commence soon.
The JV is confident that the prototype it first model of GSM phones with self-developed core chips and technologies could be produced and sent for quality testing with the appropriate authorities in the very near future. Because of the lower cost of production to be brought about, it is anticipated that there would be huge demand for such core chips and also the GSM phones produced from them in China. The number of mobile phone users in China is estimated to be 300 million in June 2003.