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SCMP Reporter

Cost advantage has enabled homegrown manufacturers to grab market share from their multinational rivals

Domestic brands are tuning in as the top three foreign players are expected to tune out of the mainland antenna market.

'In the near future, domestic antennas will replace foreign brands to dominate the China market,' Xian Haitian Antenna Technologies founder and president Xiao Liangyong said.

He said that global telecommunications equipment makers such as Motorola and Nokia were increasingly counting on China for their components to cut  costs.

'Before 2000, foreign companies had 100 per cent of the domestic antenna market. But now, domestic brands have taken 30 per cent of the cake. It's predictable that domestic brands will take a larger part in the near future.'

With the telecommunications equipment market becoming more and more competitive, foreign manufacturers  were being forced to buy China-made brands to cut costs in order to stay ahead of their rivals, he said.

Mr Xiao said China did not start to develop its own antenna industry until 2000, when the Ministry of Information Industry brought  domestic antenna standards along  international lines.

Despite the late start,  domestic antenna makers are quickly catching up with international players such as mainland market leader Katherin of Germany, Andrew Corp of the United States  and Stockholm-based LGP Allgon.

Xian Haitian, a Growth Enterprise Market listing candidate,   was formed in late 1999 by Mr Xiao, a retired professor from Xidian University in Xian.

Already  the mainland's top domestic antenna brand,  Xian Haitian plans to  double its share of the domestic market to 40 per cent  in the coming two to three years.

Mr Xiao is confident his company can take on its multinational rivals,  especially given Xian Haitian's  relatively low research and development costs.

'Though the foreign companies have set up manufacturing bases in China, they still do their research at their respective home countries, which cost them much more money than us. Our products are 20 per cent to 30 per cent cheaper than the same types of antenna produced by those companies,'  Mr Xiao said.

He said about 40 per cent of the money raised from the company's H-share offer  would be invested in developing third-generation (3G) antennas.

Xian Haitian last year signed a deal with Datang Telecom to explore TD-SCDMA, the Chinese 3G standard unified by the Ministry of Information Industry.

Mr Xiao said the firm would start testing early next year the 3G mobile phones it had developed.

'It is a new growth point for Haitian as well as other domestic telecommunications equipment makers,' he said.



Domestic players take on foreign antenna brands