Continuing the string of announcements surrounding the potentially lucrative Chinese market during the past few weeks, Siemens AG and Chinese company Huawei Technologies Co. said they will join forces to promote the Chinese homegrown third-generation standard TD-SCDMA. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture to develop, manufacture and market TD-SCDMA technology.
The new $100 million company will be based in Beijing, with Siemens holding 51 percent of the venture and Huawei holding the remaining 49 percent.
Siemens and Chinese company Datang Technologies were the main forces behind the development of TD-SCDMA technology. Siemens said it has invested $170 million so far in the technology.
However, the Chinese government has yet to award 3G licenses, and it has not said which of the three 3G standards-W-CDMA, CDMA2000 or TD-SCDMA-it will allow to operate within the country.
“Both Siemens Mobile and Huawei Technologies are confident that TD-SCDMA succeeds in the Chinese market and could encourage operators outside of China to adopt the standard,” Siemens said, citing the technology’s ability to handle standalone networks for large geographic coverage and to provide complementary solutions to GSM and W-CDMA networks.
Manufacturing and marketing efforts of the joint venture initially will be focused on China, and the first commercial products will be available in China at the beginning of 2004, Siemens said.
Huawei Technologies was established in 1988 and originally focused on supplying fixed-line equipment. However, it began targeting the wireless market several years ago and has won several mobile infrastructure contracts in Asia and Eastern Europe.
