Sharp bets it can sell cellphones in China

Sharp Corp. has decided to enter China's tricky cellphone handset market even though other Japanese suppliers failed to turn a profit and pulled out.

The company will start by selling models with high-resolution LCD screens, probably before the Beijing Olympics in August, said Sharp President Mikio Katayama.

Kyocera Corp. announced its withdrawal from China in January, making it the last supplier to pull out.

China's cellphone market, one of the world's largest, is dominated by low-end handsets. It also uses the GSM telecommunications standard, which is different from Japan's.

Sharp plans to ship high-end handsets featuring its Aquos brand liquid crystal display screens by around June, Katayama told The Asahi Shimbun in an interview.

It will be the first time for Sharp, the domestic market leader, to sell cellphone handsets in huge quantity in China.

For seven consecutive quarters through last December, Sharp shipped the largest number of handsets in Japan, according to market researcher International Data Corp.

The Aquos handsets, first released in spring 2006 in Japan, can receive digital terrestrial TV broadcasts for mobile devices.

Sharp will consider selling TV-compatible handsets in China in the future because the country has just started similar services on an experimental basis.

Sales of cellphone handsets in China are projected at 212 million units in fiscal 2008.

Finland's Nokia Corp., South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and other foreign suppliers are competing for market shares.(IHT/Asahi: March 15,2008)