(SinoCast China IT Watch via NewsEdge) Mobile phone sales in China grew by 3.88% in the third quarter, but the market share of Chinese brands dropped below 30% for the first time, according to research companies.
From July to September, there were 22.93 million mobile phones sold in China. Nokia, Motorola and Samsung were the top three brands in the domestic market, said Analysys International, a Beijing-based IT consulting firm.
The market share of local brands fell to 29.2% by September, from 38% in December last year and 55% in 2003, said Beijing-based CCID Consulting, a research firm under the Ministry of Information Industry.
Nokia and Motorola held more than 55.6% of the market. In the third quarter, Nokia's market share was 33%, followed by Motorola's 22% and Samsung's 8%, Gartner analyst Sandy Shen said.
The top Chinese mobile phone makers were Ningbo Bird and Lenovo, each with 5% of the market, Shen added.
"Chinese competitors overinvested in promotion and invested inefficiently in research, and that influenced their performance," Nokia senior vice president Colin Giles said.
Foreign firms invested heavily in phone design and multimedia functions, such as MP3 players, which attracted people to replace their phones, Analysys said.
Motorola's super-thin RAZR V3 model and PDA phone Ming pioneered design and received warm market response in China.
Meanwhile, Sony Ericsson, the No. 4 seller, launched MP3-enhanced phones, while Nokia introduced multimedia phones with functions such as a five-megapixel camera.
China's legions of mobile phone subscribers swarmed to a new high of 443 million at the end of September, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Information Industry.
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