中国低端智能手机市场上演激烈争夺战

While Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. take each other on in the lucrative high-end smartphone market, there is another battle taking place in the less glamorous world of inexpensive smartphones in China.

苹果公司(Apple Inc.)和三星电子(Samsung Electronics Co.)在利润丰厚的高端智能手机市场上展开厮杀时，中国不那么光鲜时髦的廉价智能手机市场却正在上演着另一场争夺战。

With a larger portion of China's one billion mobile phone users replacing their basic cellphones, the market is exploding for smartphones that cost about 1,000 yuan (US$157) or less. Major local players like Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. are leaders in that segment, where foreign players like Samsung and Nokia Corp. also compete.

中国有约10亿手机用户，其中越来越多的人正在淘汰手里的普通手机。鉴于此，售价约人民币1,000元（约合157美元）或更低的智能手机市场正在飞速增长。华为技术有限公司(Huawei Technologies Co., 简称：华为)和中兴通讯股份有限公司(ZTE Corp., 简称：中兴通讯)等中国本土大型厂商是这一细分市场的领军企业。此外，三星电子和诺基亚(Nokia Corp.)等国外商家也参与了这一市场的竞争。

But the low-end segment of the smartphone market is now getting even more crowded, as Chinese Internet companies such as Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc. jump on the bandwagon by teaming up with electronics makers to launch inexpensive smartphones.

但中国低端智能手机市场的竞争正在日益加剧。阿里巴巴集团(Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd.)和百度(Baidu Inc.)等中国互联网企业正与电子产品制造商联手推出廉价智能手机，纷纷加入这一市场的竞争。

"There are too many new entrants in the low-end segment, and competition is getting more and more intense," said Nicolas Baratte, CLSA's regional head of technology research. Margins will be very thin and it will be difficult for anyone to make money in that segment, he added.

里昂证券(CLSA)亚洲科技产业研究部主管巴拉特(Nicolas Baratte)说，越来越多的企业涉足低端智能手机市场，竞争日趋激烈。他还说，低端智能手机的利润将变得十分微薄，哪家公司都很难以从这个细分市场中获利。

Last month, Baidu, China's biggest Web search engine, teamed up with major Chinese TV maker Changhong to launch a smartphone priced under 1,000 yuan. Meanwhile, Alibaba, China's biggest e-commerce company, and Haier, a major Chinese home appliances maker, said this month that they are together launching a smartphone, also priced just under 1,000 yuan. With the new smartphones, which run on operating systems that steer users to the Internet companies' services, Baidu and Alibaba are trying to generate more mobile traffic for their services.

上个月，中国最大互联网搜索引擎百度与中国大型电视机制造商长虹(Changhong)联手推出一款售价不到1,000元的智能手机。另外，中国最大电子商务网站阿里巴巴集团和中国家电业巨头海尔(Haier)本月说，它们将合作推出一款智能手机，价格也略低于1,000元。百度和阿里巴巴集团均希望通过推出新智能手机（采用引导用户使用各自服务的操作系统），从而为各自的服务带来更多手机流量。

An increasing number of lesser-known Chinese brands are also selling smartphones that cost about a quarter of the local price of Apple's latest iPhone 4S, fueling further growth in a market that is already the world's largest after it surpassed the U.S. late last year.

此外，越来越多不为人知的中国品牌也开始销售智能手机，而价格仅为苹果最新款iPhone 4S中国市场价的四分之一左右，助推中国智能手机市场进一步增长。去年底，中国一举超越美国，成为全球规模最大的智能手机市场。