The call of last year's for 3rd generation (3G) mobile phone was all from the European and American old brand mobile phone dealers. Early this year, Chinese mobile phone producers became the protagonists for the first time.

Konka announced last week its 3G plan: in mid-2005, Konka's self-developed 3G mobile phone will make its appearance. "In the era of 3G, Konka will strive to be not only a powerful mobile phone manufacturer, but also the pacesetter of the whole industry," said Huang Zhongtian, general manager of Shenzhen Konka Communication Technology Ltd confidently.

Konka's blueprint of 3G is: in 2004 tracking various 3G standards and promoting mainly serial high-end camera mobile phones. In this phase, Konka will invest 500 million yuan (US$60.4 million). The focus will be on the expansion of the "Konka Central Academy". The academy, founded in 2003, is Konka's R&D base for 3G technology.

In the middle of 2005, Konka will bring to the market samples of self-developed 3G mobile phones and meanwhile multimedia mobile phones able to take high-quality images. From 2006 to 2008, Konka hopes to become "the company with the most complete 3G mobile phone assembly lines in China".

At a press conference, with regard to which kind of 3G standard Konka will choose to be the focus of the media, Huang indicated they would track three kinds of international standards in an all-round way, saying "We have no right or capital to gamble on any standard but should try our best to make our products compatible."

Now Konka does not have CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) license, therefore insiders guess that Konka will possibly concentrate on the two major 3G standards: European WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and China's TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access).

(People's Daily February 24, 2004)