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Sharp to focus on Asia in 2008

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Posted by: AL9999

http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/mobile/a...08/news101.html

According to the above article, the head of Sharp's IT communications division has said they're returning to a focus on high end handsets this year as part of their global strategy, although the group is going to focus its efforts/money on Asian countries because they have phone markets fairly similar to Japan (read: they're prepared to pay for high-end handsets unlike €0 cheap-skates in Europe). Sounds like admission that their strategy of making low-end to mainstream handsets bombed in Europe. Well, I could have (well I actually did) told them that - if only six Vodafone countries want to sell the 880SH and just one (Greece) the GX34, anyone could tell you that isn't a sustainable business.

Apparently they're particularly interested in making phones for China, coinciding with their push of their AQUOS TVs there in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. There was also talk of an AQUOS phone for China as well.

So, good news for all you people in Hong Kong and Taiwan (and perhaps the rest of China if it gets off the ground); bad news for people everywhere else.


Posted by: aw614

I guess they've noticed how the prices of parallel imported 903sh in mainland china and the rest of asia has kept a good value and still popular from seeing auction sites like taobao


Posted by: yangj08

Quote:
Originally Posted by aw614
I guess they've noticed how the prices of parallel imported 903sh in mainland china and the rest of asia has kept a good value and still popular from seeing auction sites like taobao

Yep, and I think the prices are still rising because demand is staying steady but the supply (new, at least) is shrinking.

I really hope they release an AQUOS phone in the mainland, preferably around the time when 3G gets launched (and preferably the 920SH or something close to it).


Posted by: Kevbodian

This is great news... takes pressure off Japan to supply the world = more supply for actual customers in local market.


Posted by: yangj08

Very interesting... A mainland version of the 920SH in April? If this is true, it's not just the Chinese that will be happy.


Posted by: martindesu

If the 920SH comes to the UK, it will be bought up in a shot.


Posted by: AL9999

They make quite a claim in that story. I find it a bit hard to believe actually, that Sharp would unleash its best technology in a handset destined for outside Japan, especially China, where the majority of people would have absolutely no way of affording such an expensive handset. Apart from this, it's bad marketing and planning - it would make it really difficult for them to follow up with something that's better.

Personally, I'd have expected them to launch a handset based on the 911SH or something. Much as I'd have liked a VGA screen to start with, I wouldn't have thought they'd implement one straight away.

Then again, I could be wrong (and I'm sure most of you hope I am)


Posted by: yangj08

Well, with the Olympics coming up, it's certainly plausible that they want to put their best foot forward. And the timing is interesting too- apparently China's set to launch their own mobile digital TV standard around that time (CMMB- China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting, or 中国移动流媒体--手机电视 in Chinese, but do we really need another mobile TV standard?) so this could be another reason to put forth something this grand straight away.
Here is a Chinese forum thread discussing this bit of news. Apparently they're skeptical too.

It IS true that not many people are going to be able to afford this phone without subsidies, though.


Posted by: AL9999

Even with the Olympics, they don't need to use their best technology to succeed, I suspect most people in China will see what the Japanese consider to be a mainstream or budget phone and get wowed by it. Personally I think everyone will be awed by a Sharp phone with the cycloid dual axis rotating hinge that simply makes do with a 240x400 pixel screen. The cycloid hinge is unique enough - it makes all those single hinge Samsungs and LGs look horrible. Also in Japan 1seg broadcasts are at 240x320 pixels, so VGA screen resolution is wasted on the mobile TV format.

Apparently China is already running a T-DMB service, so Sharp could easily go in supporting that, thanks to the tuner chip they announced they'd developed in May last year (link). The sample price of the tuner chip is 20,000 yen, so that alone would make a phone with it already reasonably expensive in China, forgetting all the other components. T-DMB also uses QVGA resolution incidentally.

I'd like to think Sharp would throw a WVGA screen in, but a sensible business case would have them equip a WQVGA screen instead.

As for another Chinese standard... well they certainly keep trying to dominate the world with their own standards. We'll see if this one gets off the ground but hopefully it doesn't, we already have too many mobile TV standards as it is.


Posted by: yangj08

Quote:
Originally Posted by AL9999
Even with the Olympics, they don't need to use their best technology to succeed, I suspect most people in China will see what the Japanese consider to be a mainstream or budget phone and get wowed by it. Personally I think everyone will be awed by a Sharp phone with the cycloid dual axis rotating hinge that simply makes do with a 240x400 pixel screen. The cycloid hinge is unique enough - it makes all those single hinge Samsungs and LGs look horrible. Also in Japan 1seg broadcasts are at 240x320 pixels, so VGA screen resolution is wasted on the mobile TV format.

Apparently China is already running a T-DMB service, so Sharp could easily go in supporting that, thanks to the tuner chip they announced they'd developed in May last year (link). The sample price of the tuner chip is 20,000 yen, so that alone would make a phone with it already reasonably expensive in China, forgetting all the other components. T-DMB also uses QVGA resolution incidentally.

I'd like to think Sharp would throw a WVGA screen in, but a sensible business case would have them equip a WQVGA screen instead.

As for another Chinese standard... well they certainly keep trying to dominate the world with their own standards. We'll see if this one gets off the ground but hopefully it doesn't, we already have too many mobile TV standards as it is.

One thing is that taking, for example, the 911SH and reworking it for China would require the addition of GSM (don't know if the 3G launch is going to be right then, but even if it is, rural areas aren't going to be covered right off the bat) which may be more work than taking the 920SH and changing the TV tuner (I don't know, though- at this point I don't really care either way because I just got a new phone).

Also, with the introduction of the PSS SIM, people in China can now use all of Sharp's latest models (this has gotten around a lot- a larger proportion of urban Chinese mobile users frequent phone-geek type message boards than with American phone users and places like HoFo; I see more and more people out on the street using unlocked/PSS SIM'd Japanese phones). People may not buy a localized model if Sharp decides to hold back (one forum post I've read complains about Sharp's recent treatment of HK/TW as a "dumping ground" for their low-end models like the 816SH and 705SH).


That said, if TV broadcasts aren't going to be 800x480 then there's absolutely no point in releasing a phone with such a high-resolution screen.

...it could be a model that closely resembles the 920SH, say, the 822SH but with GSM.


Posted by: AL9999

Oh they'll introduce a completely new model, they won't rework an old one. History would back me up on that one, Sharp never seems to like reworking old models for some odd reason. They'll probably work off a reference design for an old model (perhaps the 911SH for argument's sake) but then they'll build a new one from it, with GSM support but probably the WQVGA screen. That way they won't include useless things like FeliCa and (arguably) infra-red.

As for the PSS SIM introduction, I'm not so sure Sharp will pay much attention to it. It's definitely worthy of attention, don't get me wrong, but they are such a big corporation that I'm not sure whatever plans they may have in place can be changed so quickly/easily to respond to such a quick development (PSS SIM has only blown onto the scene in the last 1-2 weeks). Besides, JDM models with PSS SIM are still crippled in terms of internet access and MMS messaging, while the newer ones have their camera, media player and Java functionality blocked as well, so I don't think the PSS SIM situation will be as influential as you think.

But yeah, WVGA screens weren't really made for the TV function, they were just there as a general technological improvement. You could certainly view your own larger pictures and videos on them to make use of it, while text is much clearer and precise as well.

Yes, I think it would be closer to the 822SH, but with GSM and Bluetooth added in.


Posted by: martindesu

I agree with AL 100% on this.

China might well be seen as the "dumping ground" for SHARP handsets, but SHARP is a Japanese corporation and supply Japan with the best. The UK has seen bugger all from SHARP in recent months/years, but that's just life.

I would love a SHARP handset with the widescreen TV viewing, but don't want one with crap chinese firmware. I'll hold out until I live in Japan I guess. Not that I am not a fan of China or anything...


Posted by: yangj08

At this point, all anyone can really do is wait and see, I guess. All I'm hoping is that this isn't just a really convincing hoax. Sharp hasn't (officially) sold any phones on the mainland and it's time for that to change.


Posted by: AL9999

Well I certainly think they're going to push ahead and sell a phone there, if they can get the business case right - they said so themselves in the article I posted at the top. They're obviously going to tie up with an operator there and sell a branded phone, and it would be an operator either running or about to launch a 3G UMTS network. Not sure which operator is the one getting the UMTS network ready, but Sharp will pair with them.

So I think, the only way this plan won't proceed is if they can't form the business case or later on there's some collapse in it. Costs blowing out, fall out with the operator, etc.


Posted by: Double_L

Is China 3G going to be the UMTS 2100MHz??? I thought they use their own 3G standard called TD-SCDMA which is probably completely different in terms of chipset, etc... The GSM porton stays the same like the rest of Asia and Europe.

Correct me if I am wrong.


Posted by: martindesu

I hope you're not right. We need to standardise all this stuff... not diverge!


Posted by: yangj08

Quote:
Originally Posted by Double_L
Is China 3G going to be the UMTS 2100MHz??? I thought they use their own 3G standard called TD-SCDMA which is probably completely different in terms of chipset, etc... The GSM porton stays the same like the rest of Asia and Europe.

Correct me if I am wrong.

I'm pretty sure that one provider's going WCDMA and another's going TD-SCDMA. Apparently China Mobile will go TD-SCDMA, so that leaves China Unicom with WCDMA (not that they've been paying much attention to their GSM network lately, it's all about the CDMA for them right now).


Posted by: AL9999

Yeah that was my understanding as well, although I honestly haven't been following it properly either.


Posted by: martindesu

Which is lame. I still think we need to bring tech together, not diverge...

BTW AL9999 - not seen much of you recently
お元気？


Posted by: AL9999

元気だよ I just like to hide from MSN, tis all


Posted by: martindesu

大丈夫だよ！
また明日ね。




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