Homegrown players controlled a combined 28.56 percent of China's handset market in June, down sharply from a high of 60 percent two years ago, the paper said, citing figures provided by local consulting agency Sino Market Research.

In contrast, Nokia, Motorola and other multinationals are enjoying robust growth as they penetrate the middle and lower end of the market with promotions and new models, it said.

Motorola alone is expected to claim a quarter of China's handset market by the end of this year, up from 21 percent in May, Michael Tatelman, Motorola's corporate vice president of mobile devices, said last week.

"Our goal is to ensure that one out of four handsets sold in China are Motorola. We'd certainly like to get very close to that one-in-four target by the end of this year," he said.

Tatelman, who said he agreed with third-party research estimates that China's handset market was growing by 25 to 30 percent a year, added that Motorola's share of the country鈥檚 handset market was likely to grow faster than that rate.

Local players are being forced to rely on cheap exports to developing countries to maintain their business, the newspaper noted.

Major local firms include Shanghai-listed Ningbo Bird Co. and Hong Kong-listed TCL Communication Technology Holdings.

(Shenzhen Daily September 14, 2006)