TV coming to China Mobile phones

China Mobile is set to give digital mobile television a big boost in the second half of the year when it starts to offer a million handsets that allow customers to watch their favourite shows on the go.

Israeli-based chip designer Siano Mobile Silicon is developing chips to go into phones and other devices using the China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) standard. The standards have been developed by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which regulates the mainland broadcasting industry.

Wang Wei, Siano's general manager for China, said the CMMB mobile television service would penetrate further into the mainland market once the company bundled the mobile television service with its TD-SCDMA 3G mobile services.

'China Mobile has requested that all TD-SCDMA mobile phones priced above 1,500 yuan [HK$1,701] include the CMMB receiver feature, after SARFT and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reached an agreement on this earlier this year,' Mr Wang said last week.

He said leading mobile phone makers, including Samsung Mobile, ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies, would install Siano's mobile television chips into the phones, scheduled to hit the streets as early as October.

'We expect shipments to reach two million in the second half,' said Mr Wang. 'Around one million will be for mobile phones and netbooks, and the remaining one million will be for other devices, such as portable multimedia players.'

The CMMB receiver is already installed in new netbook computers sold by China Mobile. Mr Wang said a netbook with built-in mobile television features could be a better choice for consumers, as the bigger screens provided a better visual experience.