RPT-Motorola aims for quarter of China handset market http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-07-13T085019Z_01_PEK270790_RTRIDST_0_TELECOMS-CHINA-MOTOROLA-URGENT.XML&rpc=66
Thu Jul 13, 2006
By Doug Young and David Lin
SHANGHAI, July 13 (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. (MOT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's number two cellphone maker, is aiming to take a quarter of the China handset market in the near term as it hones a newly built national retail network, an executive said on Thursday.
The company now has about 30,000 retailers selling its handsets in China, triple the number it had 18 months ago, Michael Tatelman, general manager for Motorola's mobile devices division for North Asia, said.
Its current share has grown rapidly over that period as it built the network, climbing from just 11 percent at the beginning of 2005 to 21 percent in May, according to industry data.
"Based on what we have on the ground today, we ought to be able to achieve 25 percent share in China in the not-too-distant future," Tatelman told Reuters at an interview, as the company opened its first flagship China store in Shanghai.
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