Japan's NEC Corp. said Tuesday it has developed a mobile phone as big as a credit card and will launch the product later this month in China.

The mobile phone comes with a built-in digital camera, an earphone and a tiny microphone. It is the same size as a credit card or bank card, measuring 85 mm by 54 mm.

The card phone is only 8.6 mm thick as NEC has succeeded in thinning the printed-circuit board, the heart of a mobile phone, by 60 percent from the previous model, the electronics company said.

It incorporates a liquid crystal display and a built-in camera with 300,000 pixels. The handset can play polyphonic ring tones with 40 different chords.

NEC said it has decided to sell the super-small and thin handset in China, calling the market the world's largest for mobile phones and where fierce competition is under way among handset manufacturers over product miniaturization and diversification.

(Xinhua News Agency February 4, 2004)