In conjunction with its 20th anniversary in the country, Nokia Corp. reiterated its focus on China-the world’s No. 1 wireless market-and promised to increase its presence there.
“In 2004, Nokia not only retained, but clearly extended, its position as the No. 1 player in the Chinese mobile device market. This is thanks to the strong Nokia brand here, our leading technology and quality products, as well as the recent hard work done in driving the efficiency and reach of our distribution system, particularly in more rural areas,” said Jorma Ollila, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer. “It was also an excellent year for exports. We were again ranked the largest telecom exporter in China, a position held since 2000, with our export sales growing 56 percent year on year in 2004 to reach a record $3.3 billion.”
According to market research firm iSuppli Corp., Motorola Inc. was the No. 1 handset vendor in China in 2003, with 14.7 percent of the market. Nokia came in second place with 14.3 percent of the market and Chinese vendor Ningbo Bird claimed the third spot with 11.4 percent.
Nokia’s resurgence in China is notable since the company recently lost the No. 1 position in the United States to Motorola, according to research firm Stax. China is Nokia’s second-largest market, while the United States is the company’s largest market in terms of handset sales.
Nokia said it counts a total of 4,700 Chinese employees, working mainly in the company’s global manufacturing and research and development efforts. The company forecast that subscriber growth in China will almost double during the next five years, driven by a strong replacement market in urban areas and more users in rural China gaining access to mobile communications. Nokia estimated the total number of worldwide wireless subscribers will increase from 1.7 billion at the end of last year to 3 billion by 2010. Of these new subscriptions, nearly one-quarter are expected to be in China, the company said.
Indeed, China is already far-and-away the world’s largest wireless market. According to the RCR Wireless News International Mobile Carrier Database, there were 316 million wireless subscribers in China at the end of 2004, far more than the 174 million in the second-ranked United States.
Further, according to new research, China’s communications industry expects sales to top $68 billion in 2005, up 27 percent from 2004. The numbers include sales of mobile phones, cellular base stations and wireless local area network/wide area network equipment. The report was published jointly by Global Sources’ Electronic Engineering Times-China (EE Times-China) and Electronics Supply & Manufacturing-China (ESM-China). As for mobile phones, the report predicted China’s mobile-phone production will grow annually, on average, by 14 percent until 2007. In 2005, output will reach 223 million units.
