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Cheaper smart phones to hit market in 3 months

CHINA'S 2G smart phones will soon reach the 400 yuan (US$63.5) mark in retail price in the next three months with the release of new mobile chips, Morgan Stanley said today.

Most smart phones running on operating systems like Android cost more than US$100.

Chip makers such as MediaTek have taken action to lower smart phone specifications and supply cheaper chips priced around US$60, according to Morgan Stanley.

This will speed up the replacement of outdated feature phones, handsets with only basic functions, with low-priced smart phones, analysts said.

"This is traditionally 150-200 million units annually and we see that moving quickly toward smartphones. Consequently, we are now forecasting downside to 2G feature phone units and upside to smart phone units," Morgan Stanley said in the statement.

Shenzhen-listed ZTE Corp, which dominates the low-end and middle-level phone market, will "respond to the market demand" and launch cheap 2G smart phone models, the company told Shanghai Daily today.

More than 185 million smart phone chips are expected to be sold in China this year, compared with 100 to 120 million last year, according to Morgan Stanley.

The average price of 3G smart phones has also declined and attracted many new players to the low-end market, analysts said.

HTC Corp, for example, used to focus on high-end phones. It recently launched Desire, a new model priced only 1,999 yuan, just for the domestic market. Most of its other products cost more than 3,000 yuan each.
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