Since China Mobile kicked off selling of TD-SCDMA mobile phones fifteen days ago in eight cities around the country, 2,000 TD handsets have been sold, 20.8% were Samsung, 19.1%, 12.6%, 12.6%,, and 8.2% for LG, Lenovo, Hisense, and Guangzhou New Postcom Equipment, respectively.
Of the total sales, home-made TD handsets took up 60%. ZTE was the most eye-caching brand. Its ZTE U980 grabbed 26.8%, with a sale of 495 sets.
Now all TD mobile phone in the market are from six brands: Guangzhou New Postcom Equipment, Lenovo, Hisense, ZTE, Samsung, and LG.
LG and Samsung got a 4,500-set contract respectively from China Mobile, accounting for 7.5% of the total volume. However, the two phone makers' sales during the past fifteen days were taking 40% of the market.
Wang Jianzhou, president of China Mobile, says that the TD phones have received robust ovations from mobile phone users.
China Mobile will unveil the result for the TD handset tests and commercial trial in the near future. And it will also invite a third party to evaluate the commercial trial.
Market research firm CCID Consulting expects that the TD network will be expanded to more major cities around the nation this year while the number of TD mobile phones will be growing by leaps and bounds.
China Mobile on April 1 kicked off TD-SCDMA-backed 3G mobile telecom service in Shanghai. First it came up with 10,000 sets of TD mobile phones under six brands of ZTE, Samsung, LG, Hisense, Lenovo, and Guangzhou Xinyoutong.
The ZTE U980 is priced at CNY 3,800, against CNY 2,800 of Samsung L288, CNY 2,500 of LG KD876. The models launched by Hisense, Xinyoutong, and Lenovo are all priced at CNY 1,800.
Meanwhile, China Mobile also released two network cards Datong DTM5722 and ZTE MU318, which are sold at CNY 800 and CNY 700 respectively.
ZTE U980 is high-end smart phone aiming at high-income consumers. The other five models are high-end products.
The TD service's monthly subscription fee is CNY 50 and it is one-way charging for CNY 0.4 per minute. Domestic roaming fee is CNY 0.6 per minute and CNY 0.4 per minute for receiving calls.
Video calling fees are CNY 0.6 per minute and free for receiving calls. During the trial period, subscribers of the service are entitled to enjoy 50% discount.
China Mobile started selling TD-SCDMA mobile phones, first in eight host cities of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, respectively, Beijing, Tianjin, Shenyang, Qinhuangdao, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Xiamen.
