Business

Fri Aug 29 01:43:33 PDT 2008

HONG KONG, Aug 29 (Reuters) - TCL Communication Technology Holdings <2618.HK>, the handset-making arm of Chinese electronics giant TCL Corp <000100.SZ>, aims to nearly double its unit sales and revenue by 2010 on robust demand in the emerging markets.

"2005-2007 for me is turnaround and recover. Starting 2008, I want to grow the company at 25 percent a year in both revenue and unit sales for three years," Chief Executive Liu Fei told Reuters in an interview.

TCL Communication — which acquired the troubled handset business of French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel — plans to sell 16 million handsets this year against 12.5 million in 2007.

Unit shipments jumped 60 percent to 6.7 million in the January-June period, 90 percent of that went abroad.

Liu said he is confident about the target because first half unit sales had already exceeded the company’s expectation.

The company vies with the top two Chinese telecom equipment makers, Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] and ZTE Corp <0763.HK>, and global handset giants Nokia <NOK1V.HE> and LG Electronics <066570.KS> in the overseas markets and many local vendors in China.

"We see a clear competition. But we should be able to compete with foreign players as we are more cost-efficient and able to compete with Chinese players, and they (Huawei and ZTE) are pure ODMs (original design manufacturing) while we are a brand company," he said.

The company, which uses the Alcatel brand for overseas markets and the TCL brand for China, plans to launch 34 new handset models in the second half of this year and another 32 in 2009.

Its revenue rose 13 percent from a year earlier to HK$2.34 billion ($300 million) in the first six months of this year. But Liu said growth will be much higher in the second half due to seasonal factors. ($1= HK$7.8)

(Reporting by Judy Hua; Editing by Ken Wills)

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