Chinese consumers' increasing desire for "feature-rich" cellphones is propelling the replacement market, a recent survey indicates.

The annual survey, the third by the China Telecommunications Academy under the Ministry of Information Industry, found nearly three-fourths of Chinese users have replaced their mobile phones.

Only one-fourth of the respondents have never updated their cellphones.

The survey, based on 305,874 respondents, found 84 per cent of cellphone users are between 20 and 35 years old.

Most respondents said they want "feature-rich" cellphones, because they are not satisfied with phones that offer just voice communications.

The survey also found 32.9 per cent of respondents want cellphones with built-in MP3 players.

Nearly 15 per cent of the respondents want blue tooth-enabled cellphones, 13.7 per cent want phones with embedded radios, while 12.3 per cent expect their cellphones to provide instant translation.

Some users are also hankering for games, Java functions, voice input and illumination on the phones.

Increasing demands for entertainment and new features offer new opportunities for manufacturers, the survey indicated.

That will propel manufacturers to speed up technological innovation, the survey noted.

Consumers are also becoming increasingly interested in cellphones that have MMS (multimedia messaging service).

Nearly 40 per cent of respondents said their first choice would be a phone capable of sending pictures.

About 30 per cent said phones with GPS (global positioning system) would be their first choice, while 16.7 per cent wanted cellphones with flash animation.

Less than 10 per cent of the respondents said cellphones capable of downloading music would be their first choice, while 8 per cent favoured phones capable of online gaming.

The survey found 79.6 per cent of respondents are using GSM (global system for mobile communications) cellphones.

However, GPRS (general packet radio access) and CDMA (code division multiple access) phones are becoming more popular.

The survey found 12.2 per cent of users have GPRS phones, up 11 per cent compared with last year's survey.

Some 8.1 per cent of respondents said they use CDMA phones, compared with 1.4 per cent a year ago.

The survey found foreign cellphone brands still dominate the Chinese market, although their shares of the market are declining, due to increasing competition from home-grown brands.

Motorola and Nokia are still regarded as the best brands.

Siemens grabbed the No 3 spot.

Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Samsung, Alcatel and Phillips finished fourth through eighth.

(Business Weekly 08/05/2003 page1)