Mobile vendor strategies - 01/09/07

LG targets to ship 78m handsets in 2007 and increase mobile phone margin to 5% (from just over 1% last year). It sees its Indian CDMA handset sales falling due to intense competition from low-cost Chinese vendors.

ZTE and mobile chipset provider Spreadtrum enter a TD-SCDMA strategic partnership.

Sony Ericsson is looking to become one of the top three handset manufacturers in the world. In that purpose, SE will address a broader market expanding its handset lineup of phones under €100, but not necessarily very low cost phones.

Huawei and Telecom Venezuela target to produce around 2m GSM mobile phones a year from 2008.

Ningbo Bird has decided to end its partnership with Sagem (France) in mobile handsets. It is a drawback for Sagem, which already faces a lot of troubles with lower sales (-47% in 1Q07) and only 17m units sold in 2006.

Telepark, a Mitsui subsidiary, is likely to buy Sanyo Electric' s cell phone handset unit.

DoCoMo has announced the development of two smartphones equipped with the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 OS.

Rumor: Microsoft would be eying RIM, the BlackBerry maker.