China exports mostly foreign cell phones

BEIJING, May 21 (UPI) -- Less than six percent of China's growing cell phone export market is made up of phones produced by Chinese companies.

Wang Jianzhang, head of the Ministry of Information Industry's planning department, said only 13.2 million of the 228 million cell phones exported in 2005 were manufactured at plants funded by China.

Three-hundred four million phones were produced in China, which is 36.8 percent of global production, the Xinhua news agency reports.

The market share of what Wang termed "home brands" dropped to 40 percent in China in 2005. It was 44.5 percent in 2004.

Wang said the $20.6 billion made off cell phone exports in 2005 was a 45 percent increase from the year before.