Pushed by China Mobile, TD-SCDMA handsets and smartphones at retail prices of about 500 yuan (US$75) and 1,000 yuan respectively will be available in the China market in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The TD-SCDMA industry has been developing for 4-5 years, resulting in a supply chain of more than 100 players, according to secretary-general Yang Hua for the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance. There are 7-8 developers of TD-SCDMA chips currently, with chip prices falling 60-70% over a year to US$8-10 at present, Yang indicated.

Five international and many China-based vendors had launched 461 TD-SCDMA handsets as of the end of August 2010, with Samsung Electronics the largest international vendor, Yang pointed out. However, a single TD-SCDMA model can reach sales of 200,000-300,000 handsets only, a volume too small to be able to push down component costs, according to Taiwan-based handset makers.

China Mobile is setting up its fourth-phase TD-SCDMA network of more than 100,000 base stations and expects the number of TD-SCDMA subscribers to increase from 13.42 million currently to 100 million in 2012.