中國低端智能手機市場上演激烈爭奪戰

While Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. take each other on in the lucrative high-end smartphone market, there is another battle taking place in the less glamorous world of inexpensive smartphones in China.

蘋果公司(Apple Inc.)和三星電子(Samsung Electronics Co.)在利潤豐厚的高端智能手機市場上展開廝殺時，中國不那麼光鮮時髦的廉價智能手機市場卻正在上演着另一場爭奪戰。

With a larger portion of China's one billion mobile phone users replacing their basic cellphones, the market is exploding for smartphones that cost about 1,000 yuan (US$157) or less. Major local players like Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. are leaders in that segment, where foreign players like Samsung and Nokia Corp. also compete.

中國有約10億手機用戶，其中越來越多的人正在淘汰手裏的普通手機。鑑於此，售價約人民幣1,000元（約合157美元）或更低的智能手機市場正在飛速增長。華爲技術有限公司(Huawei Technologies Co., 簡稱：華爲)和中興通訊股份有限公司(ZTE Corp., 簡稱：中興通訊)等中國本土大型廠商是這一細分市場的領軍企業。此外，三星電子和諾基亞(Nokia Corp.)等國外商家也參與了這一市場的競爭。

But the low-end segment of the smartphone market is now getting even more crowded, as Chinese Internet companies such as Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. jump on the bandwagon by teaming up with electronics makers to launch inexpensive smartphones.

但中國低端智能手機市場的競爭正在日益加劇。阿里巴巴集團(Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.)和百度(Baidu Inc.)等中國互聯網企業正與電子產品製造商聯手推出廉價智能手機，紛紛加入這一市場的競爭。

"There are too many new entrants in the low-end segment, and competition is getting more and more intense," said Nicolas Baratte, CLSA's regional head of technology research. Margins will be very thin and it will be difficult for anyone to make money in that segment, he added.

里昂證券(CLSA)亞洲科技產業研究部主管巴拉特(Nicolas Baratte)說，越來越多的企業涉足低端智能手機市場，競爭日趨激烈。他還說，低端智能手機的利潤將變得十分微薄，哪家公司都很難以從這個細分市場中獲利。

Last month, Baidu, China's biggest Web search engine, teamed up with major Chinese TV maker Changhong to launch a smartphone priced under 1,000 yuan. Meanwhile, Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce company, and Haier, a major Chinese home appliances maker, said this month that they are together launching a smartphone, also priced just under 1,000 yuan. With the new smartphones, which run on operating systems that steer users to the Internet companies' services, Baidu and Alibaba are trying to generate more mobile traffic for their services.

上個月，中國最大互聯網搜索引擎百度與中國大型電視機制造商長虹(Changhong)聯手推出一款售價不到1,000元的智能手機。另外，中國最大電子商務網站阿里巴巴集團和中國家電業巨頭海爾(Haier)本月說，它們將合作推出一款智能手機，價格也略低於1,000元。百度和阿里巴巴集團均希望通過推出新智能手機（採用引導用戶使用各自服務的操作系統），從而爲各自的服務帶來更多手機流量。

An increasing number of lesser-known Chinese brands are also selling smartphones that cost about a quarter of the local price of Apple's latest iPhone 4S, fueling further growth in a market that is already the world's largest after it surpassed the U.S. late last year.

此外，越來越多不爲人知的中國品牌也開始銷售智能手機，而價格僅爲蘋果最新款iPhone 4S中國市場價的四分之一左右，助推中國智能手機市場進一步增長。去年底，中國一舉超越美國，成爲全球規模最大的智能手機市場。