The Battle for China's Low-End Smartphone Market

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BY JURO OSAWA AND PAUL MOZUR

SHANGHAI—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.

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.

But the low-end segment of the smartphone market is now getting even more ...

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