Dr. Jing Wang, acting secretary-general of TD Forum, attended the Spreadtrum Technology Forum 2007 on Aug. 29th. He chaired the roundtable discussion on “Domestic handset industry and the upcoming TD-SCDMA”.

In recent years, the global mobile handset market developed rapidly. Handsets with new functions and applications were released one after another. “Whoever owns the Chinese market will own the whole world” because of the huge market potential and manufacturing base. In mobile handset industry, domestic chipset providers play a very important role. Spreadtrum is a Chinese chipset provider who provides very competitive core mobile chipsets and wireless platform solutions. With its high quality services and rich market experience, Spreadtrum will surely have a larger say in TD-SCDMA commercialization.

Spreadtrum has posted strong growth in its GSM/GPRS chipset these years. After being listed in NASDAQ in June, 2007, Spreadtrum began to focus its attention on the huge market that will be brought about by TD-SCDMA commercialization. Based on its core technologies and customer base, Spreadtrum re-adjusted its business model and partnership strategy in an effort to explore the way of leveraging the Chinese domestic handset industry.

In the roundtable discussion, Dr. Wang reviewed the history of China mobile industry development. He said, China began to manufacture mobile handset in late 1990s and the market share peaked in 2003. However, after 2003, the whole industry declined dramatically. What was the root cause for such phenomenon? The participating roundtable experts attributed it to lack of R&D and market research in domestic handset makers. Most Chinese handset vendors were quite nearsighted in the way that their only focus was to roll out as quick and many handsets without paying attention to brand differentiations, while the differentiation is a key factor to grow and sustain the domestic brands. Development without market and technology research will not last long. Technology and market are two key factors in industry development. Only those who can achieve the balance of the two can succeed.

The forthcoming TD-SCDMA commercialization will bring about a lot of opportunities, Dr. Wang went on to say. Splendid 3G applications that 2G cannot support will surely attract the public attention. Bandwidth and mobility, which are vital in 3G, will help to expand the variety of 3G applications and improve customer experience. In the mobile handset industry chain, handset manufacturers are closer to the customers, while chipset makers have better understanding of technology. How will the two cooperate to benefit more from each other and maximize the social welfare? The roundtable experts agreed that the turn-key model popular in the 2G era will no longer prevail in the 3G era. But this does not mean handset manufacturers should do the R&D all by themselves. It will be ideal if chipset makers provide a stable platform with plenty of interfaces, and handset manufacturers develop their products on it. Regarding how to enhance core competency and market presence of domestic handsets, experts said TD handset manufacturers need to invest more and team up with chipset makers to explore market opportunities. Each handset manufacturer should have a TD-SCDMA R&D team of no less than several hundred people.

Delegates gave their suggestions and expressed best wishes to Spreadtrum. Dr. Wang urged the audience to find a complete solution, beyond technical, to lift up the competency of domestic vendors in the upcoming TD-SCDMA opportunities.

He invited delegates to attend TD-SCDMA Forum’s seminar on TD-SCDMA terminal scheduled on Sep. 7th and other TD-SCDMA Forum activities. He said these activities will help to accelerate development of TD-SCDMA industry, domestic handset industry and the Chinese 3G market.