Katherine Trebnick, Market Dev't Manager of Sony Ericsson said "One of the things that I think it is different from last year is that there is more concentration on emerging markets. So you are hearing a lot of the suppliers talk about growth in China. So even with the financial crisis and the credit crisis there is still growth in emerging markets."

In fact, the world's largest telecom equipment firms such as Ericsson or Alcatel are already hard at work in China’s fast developing 3G cell phone market, building networks and trying to find out what kinds of cell phones and services consumers are going to crave in the 3G era. But analysts predict rising local stars such as Datang, Huawei and ZTE may shove overseas telecom equipment companies out of their dominant position in China's 3G era.

Statistic show, domestic equipment suppliers will secure most of the telecom equipment business. Datang Telecom Technology & Industry Group, a major player in pushing the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard, says besides lower product prices and faster market response, owning the core patent is the most important reason, behind the rise of local firms.

Chen Shanzhi, CTO of Datang Telecom Tech & Industry Group said "The development of TD-SCDMA has strengthened Chinese companies’ competitiveness in the mobile communications field. Previously, Chinese companies had only a 20% local market share. The situation has now changed dramatically. According to recent bidding results of the TD-SCDMA system equipment and terminals, local companies won more than 80% of the contracts."

So, many Chinese firms are benefiting from the 3G roll out. ZTE has won around 30% of the total value of the 3G contracts issued by China's three main carriers in 2008. That boosted the company’s net profit by 32% for the year, in sharp contrast to many of its overseas competitors. More importantly, 3G has pushed them to up their game.