Mitsubishi enters China

Mitsubishi enters China

TOKYO (AFP): Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp. plans to set up a new digital mobile telephone production base in China, possibly in 1998, the Yomiuri Shimbun said over the weekend.

The major electric machinery maker aims to increase its global share of the portable telephone market from 6.5 percent to more than 10 percent by 2000, through establishing a production base in Asia, the major national daily said.

Mitsubishi Electric has development and production bases in the United States and France at present, and produced one million units altogether in the two countries in the year to March 1997, according to the daily.

Due to slow speed at which telephone lines are typically installed in China, demand for portable phones there is expected to grow rapidly.

The company aims to produce an overall total of more than 1.2 million units a year by 2000, when it predicts Asia will account for over 40 percent of the global market, the paper said.