BenQ to push Siemens-branded PDA phone in Europe

Taipei, Aug. 26, 2005 (CENS)--Taiwan's BenQ Corp. is scheduled to launch sales of a personal digital assistant (PDA) phone model with Windows Mobile operating system, the P50, in Europe under the brand name of Siemens, industry sources.

BenQ is scheduled to merge Siemens' cell-phone business on October 1 this year and launch first BenQ-Siemens dual-brand cell-phone model in February 2006.

BenQ's merger project is proceeding according to schedules, including establishment of a operating committee consists of ranking Siemens and BenQ officials, integration of the two companies' cell-phone product blueprints, personnel deployment in various regional markets, and determining target products for respective markets, etc. The legal identity of the merger will be set up on September 15.

Industry sources said that BenQ plans to push its P50 in the European market on concerns that will be a new-product vacancy left, seen from its official merger with Siemens' cell-phone business to the demonstration of first BenQ-Siemens mobile-phone. In addition, Siemens launched only one PDA phone model, the SX1, in late 2003 and has no new PDA-phone products on the drawing board, though Siemens demonstrated several new products aim at the business market.

BenQ's another consideration is that Siemens has set up stable and long-term cooperation ties with mobile-telecom carriers in Europe and owned well-established sales channels, which are expected to help BenQ's cell-phone products jump onto the European stage easily.

The BenQ P50, which started to be vended in Taiwan market in June, supports tri-band (GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz) and general packet radio service (GPRS) transmission. More important, the model is available with built-in wireless local area network (WLAN) function and Qwerty (39 key) keyboard, meeting operating habits of European and American businessmen. BenQ said that the P50 was anticipated by many Windows-based fans in the U.S. and Europe and now it can fill Siemens' product vacancy in the fourth quarter.

BenQ claimed that the P50 would be sold only in Europe under the brand name of Siemens. The company's original plans to tap the U.S. market with the model would be temporarily delayed.