[Some estimates have as many as 300m mobile handset users in China by 2006.]

by Christopher Brown-Humes and joe Leahy -- "China has never been so important to the world's telecommunications equipment manufacturers.

"It is not just the sheer size of the market - this year China has proved a rare bright spot just as other parts of the world have recorded lower or flat sales growth.

"China has been growing strongly at a time when equipment makers have been finding things much tougher in western Europe and South America," says Ben Wood, senior analyst at Gartner, the London information technology and telecoms consultancy.

"If a spate of recent announcements by leading western telecoms equipment groups is anything to go by, China is set to become even more important.

Motorola, the US company, is the biggest supplier of handsets to China and plans to invest a further $3bn there over the next five years, particularly in research and development. Ericsson of Sweden said last month that it intended to double its investment in China from $2.4bn to $5.1bn over the same period. Nokia and Siemens are also stepping up investment.

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