Following recent efforts in cracking down on illegally-licensed mobile phones, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) is now preparing to further control and manage China's mobile phone manufacturing market.
MII plans to reduce the number of mobile handset manufacturers to 45 companies by 2008. Official statistics show that China has 65 mobile phone manufacturers now, which is 28 more than the number in 2004. With the increase of manufacturers, there arise problems such as stock and resource waste. MII hopes that the new mechanism, along with a market access approval mechanism which was adopted earlier, will help create an orderly marketplace.
MII's blueprint for reduction is in accordance with the current market fixed indices on both market share, production and sales volume for each company. MII will evaluate mobile phone enterprises periodically based on those indices. Those enterprises who fail to reach the set minimum scale will be forced to stop manufacturing and selling phones in China.
Chen Jinqiao, a director from MII's Telecommunication Institute has told local media that the new mechanism will be formally initiated in 2006.