By Dai Jianjun, the Department of Techno-Economic Research, the DRC

Research Report No 150, 2013

Abstract:

China's mobile phone industry has seen strengthening technology innovation ability. Some companies have also started to upgrade to reach the mid and high-end of the industrial chain.

The mobile phone industry is going through the path of innovative development: extending from labor-intensive to technology-intensive development and expanding from the low-end to high-end market. Industrial clusters also help promote innovation in the industry. China's mobile phone industry is backwards in basic research and faces many intellectual property barriers to realize high-end market innovation.

The current domestic intellectual property system in China has difficulties adapting to the development of the mobile phone industry. China should improve the intellectual property system, protect the innovation results of the mobile phone industry, and guide enterprises to build alliances in patents, standards, and research and development to jointly cope with international competition. At the same time, China should focus on the development of next generation communication technology and realize core technology breakthroughs by combining research resources.