Continued from Smartphones: Prices Plunge as Everyone Starts Making Them
The first handsets running the software platform developed by China Mobile for smartphones, called OPhone OS (formally, Open Mobile Phone Operating System), are finally reaching the market. They are the first smartphones in China to be marketed under a carrier brand name.
A major difference between OPhones and the manufacturer-driven smartphones offered until now is that the OPhone fully supports the services offered by China Mobile, including MMS (multimedia messaging service) and TV broadcasting for the mobile phone. One merit is that present China Mobile customers can transfer over without worry. Already more than twenty handset manufacturers can announced their intent to develop OPhone-compliant products, including major Chinese organizations like Lenovo Group, TCL and Huawei Technologies. Overseas, development is under way at companies like HTC, LG Electronics and Dell.
Sale of OPhone handsets only began in a limited number of cities at the end of 2009, and as yet there are few models on the street, and few visible ads. At least twenty OPhone models are expected to appear in 2010, though, and if that happens it seems likely the OPhone will become the core handset type at China Mobile.
As the very latest smartphone, the OPhone is already awaited eagerly by the ¡Èearly adopters¡É even in China. China Mobile, however, does not appear to position the OPhone as an expensive handset with a limited user group. They are hoping to sell it widely to general users, and firm chairman and CEO Wang Jianzhou has set a target sales price of about 1000 yuan (about 13,500 yen). This price is on a level with mobile phones commonly offered by other Chinese mobile carriers.
China Mobile has adopted a new sales method in an effort to lower the purchase price. In China, most mobile phone services have the user purchase a handset, and then obtain a separate SIM card, prepaid or pay-after-use contract, from the carrier. With the OPhone, however, China Mobile has adopted a basic policy of bundling the handset and the SIM card together. This is the same approach taken by the China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom) with the iPhone. It seems that bundling handset and SIM card will become the standard style in China as the smartphone penetrates the market.
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