Putian Group's three mobile phone manufacturing affiliates Bird, Eastcom and Capitel might be close to a merger, local media report.

The three parties originally objected to a merger when the idea was first raised by the former Putian CEO Ouyang Zhong, but now the situation is different with each of them facing operational problems and profit slides.

However there is still no detailed plan for incorporating their brands and management systems.

Of the three concerned parties, Capitel is the only one that has not been listed. Statistics show that Capitel has been seeing a shrinking market share since last year. Eastcom is in a similar situation.

With the Ministry of Information Industry's new guidelines stating that mobile phone manufacturers must meet a minimum market share for their resepctive components, the three companies might now seize this opportunity to merge so that they can combine resources and increase their share in China's domestic mobile phone market.