Chinese Mobile Phone Batteries Explode
June 28th, 2009More than half of all mobile phone with tv sold worldwide in the second quarter of 2007 were made in China, according to new research.
Shipments from the World’s Most Populous Nation are up more than 20 per cent on last year, say researchers from Taiwan-based Market Intelligence Center (MIC).
AdvertisementChina’s dual sim card mobile phones industry is driven by the country’s vast electronics manufacturing sector and huge home market for mobile phones, the analysts claim.
Shipments rose 23.1 per cent year on year in the second quarter to exceed 132 million units, and are predicted to exceed 147 million units in the third quarter and approach 166 million units in the fourth quarter. 
GSM phones dominate the local industry’s output as China’s government still has not licensed any 3G networks.
“Owing to Nokia’s strong global shipment performance, and robust demand in China’s domestic market, thecheap touch screen phones industry’s GSM shipment volume reached 114.9 million units,” said MIC industry analyst Wu Shan-Tung.
“The shipment figure did not live up to expectations, however, due to sluggish shipments from Motorola and its production partner Compal Communications.”
As a result, GSM’s share of the mobile phones industry’s output fell to 87 per cent in the second quarter, down from 91.5 per cent one year earlier.
Cheaper CDMA phones for emerging markets therefore boosted demand from China’s low cost factories.
“Nokia continued to outsource more of its CDMA mobile phones, and Qualcomm launched the value-line QSC-series CDMA chipsets, which significantly increased the price competitiveness of CDMA mobile phones in emerging markets, such as India, the Middle East and Africa,” added Wu.AP) Mobile phone batteries that exploded into flames during tests by officials in southern China were counterfeit, spokeswomen for Nokia and Motorola said Saturday.
The Guangdong Industrial and Commercial Administration’s Web site said four batteries exploded while being Recharged during quality tests, which flunked 40 percent of mobile phone batteries and 80 percent of chargers.
The tests also found that of 40 locally purchased batteries, 15 had a smaller capacity that labeled, sometimes by as much as half.
Motorola spokeswoman Mary Lamb told The Associated Press that Motorola immediately sent a team to Guangdong province and found that the tests were legitimate, but that the three batteries labeled Motorola were counterfeit.
“We went with members of the lab and actually looked at batteries, and determined they were not authentic,” she said.
Nokia spokeswoman Han Ying said the battery labeled Nokia that exploded was counterfeit.
The batteries are the latest in a parade of unsafe goods from China, including poison pet food, fake blood protein and dangerous toys.
Chinese imports accounted for more than 60 percent of the recalls announced by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission this year, and all of the 24 toy recalls.
China recently announced that nearly 20 percent of consumer goods it tested in the domestic market failed quality trials.
mobile phones china tests by Guangdong officials came as Chinese authorities investigate the death of a Weld, who police say died when a Motorola phone exploded in his chest pocket.
A Motorola spokesman said that the company was helping with the investigation in Gansu province, and that it was “highly unlikely” that one of the company’s products was to blame.






