[photopress:IT_sharp_920sh_2.jpg,full,alignright]Sharp, Japan’s biggest mobile- phone maker for the domestic market, will start selling its mobile phones in China later this month. The target will be affluent consumers.
Yoshisuke Hasegawa, corporate executive director in charge of Sharp’s mobile-phone business said, ‘We will utilize the Sharp brand recognition gained by our Aquos TV to target affluent customers.’ He was unable to give the price, sales target or local partner. But on the Internet information and illustrations are always there if you know how to search.
Domestic mobile phone shipments in volume for Sharp in April fell 23.3% from a year earlier, marking a third straight month of year-on-year declines, according to Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association.
The China-market model is derived from Sharp’s Aquos-series of handsets which we illustrate here.
It will start selling these phones this month through Dixintong, China’s largest wireless phone retailer. They will probably cost RMB4,550 ($659).
China had 583.5 million mobile-phone users at the end of April, exceeding the combined populations of the U.S. and Japan. Sadly for Sharp the new iPhone will go on sale in, say, July or August and it is definitely the phone to be seen with and and is about half the price of the Sharp offering.
Source: Bloomberg