ASIA China : Spreadtrum Communications reports that China Mobile (CMCC) has announced commercial deployment of TD-SCDMA technology beginning in April. TD-SCDMA is a 3G wireless network standard developed by the China Academy of Telecommunications Technology (CATT) in collaboration with Datang and Siemens and endorsed by the Chinese government. Dr. Ping Wu, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are very excited with this key development in the commercialization and deployment of TD-SCDMA technology in China.

Our friends, customers, and partners are also extremely pleased to see TD-SCDMA technology reach this milestone. Today's announcement demonstrates China Mobile's strong commitment to commercialize the TD-SCDMA technology and includes a host of measures to facilitate market acceptance of this technology including attractively priced calling plans, availability of six subsidized handset models, availability of USIM cards for consumers who purchase TD-SCDMA handsets through other channels, demo centers in eight cities, financial incentives for resellers, publicity campaigns, and after-sale customer support.

"We are pleased to see that two of our customers received over 50% of the initial round of 60,000 handset order from China Mobile in January. As additional handset orders are placed in future rounds, we believe our portfolio of TD-SCDMA products and support will enable our customers to continue to benefit from these upcoming deployments." Spreadtrum developed the first single-chip dual-mode TD-SCDMA/GSM baseband (the SC8800D) in 2004 and the first multi-mode HSDPA/TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS baseband (the SC8800H) in 2007. The company also offers a single-chip TD-SCDMA/HSDPA solution optimized for data cards (the SC8800S) and its Quorum subsidiary announced a TD-SCDMA/GSM/GPRS/EDGE RF transceiver.