During China Telecom's recent meeting on the placement of 3G handset orders, Xiao Chaojun, the 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.
The first tier are mobile phones with retail prices under CNY1,000. Xiao said two types of its mobile phone products with retail prices under CNY1,000 have been selected by China Telecom and the contract covers over 100,000 mobile phones. Though the products of Tianyu have such low prices, they can support the dual mode needs of users.
The second tier are smartphones based on the Windows Mobile operating system. At present, Tianyu has reached strategic cooperation with Microsoft to make Microsoft's Windows Mobile system a designated operating system for Tianyu's smartphones. In addition, the company is paying close attention to China Mobile's OMS and will launch an OMS-based Ophone in the fourth quarter this year.
The third tier are mobile phone products with top processors. In the fourth quarter of 2009, Tianyu will make Nvidia's first mobile phone product in China.
In addition, Tianyu is ready for an overall 3G distribution this year. The company will launch over ten EVDO terminals in the second half of 2009 and it will launch four TD-SCDMA handsets in September 2009. The company will also launch WCDMA mobile phones soon.
Xiao revealed that Tianyu's shipment in September 2009 is expected to be over one million and these mobile phones are mainly sold to Southeast Asia, India, Latin America, Africa, and Europe.