News and Research on China GrenTech Corporation Limited (GRRF)
Business Description
China GrenTech Corporation Limited provides wireless coverage products and services in China. The company’s wireless coverage products include indoor coverage products and outdoor coverage products, as well as base station coverage extension products. As of December 2006, the company had developed approximately 200 models of wireless coverage equipment.
The company holds, through its wholly owned subsidiary, GrenTech (BVI) Limited, 100% of the equity interest of Shenzhen GrenTech. The company conducts its business in China through, Shenzhen GrenTech, and its other indirect majority owned subsidiaries: Shenzhen Lingxian Technology Co., Ltd. (Shenzhen Lingxian); Lake Communication Company Limited (Lake Communication); and Quanzhou Lake Microwave Company Limited (Lake Microwave).
Shenzhen Lingxian: Shenzhen Lingxian purchases RF parts and components from Lake Communication and manufactures semi-finished repeaters for Shenzhen GrenTech. As of December 31, 2005, the company owned 99% of the equity interest in Shenzhen Lingxian.
Lake Communication: Lake Communication focuses on RF part and component production. As of December 31, 2006, the company indirectly owned an 80% equity interest in Lake Communication. As of December 31, 2006, substantially all of the RF parts and components produced at Lake Communication were purchased by Shenzhen Lingxian for use in its production of semi-finished repeaters.
Lake Microwave: Lake Microwave focuses on the research and development of RF technologies, including the design and development of RF integrated circuits and other new RF technologies. It also produces RF parts and components for sale to third party purchasers. As of December 31, 2006, the company indirectly owned 80% of the equity interest in Lake Microwave. Lake Microwave primarily produces the RF parts and components the company uses for sale to wireless operators, wireless communication equipment manufacturers and other providers of wireless coverage products and services.
Wireless Coverage Products and Services
Wireless Coverage Products
The company produces a range of wireless coverage products, including repeaters, trunk amplifiers, base station amplifiers, tower amplifiers and related accessories. The primary functions of wireless coverage products are to extend wireless coverage and improve radio signal quality. Its wireless coverage products support various transmission protocols, including CDMA, GSM, PHS and digital trunk communications. The company has completed its research and development for various 3G network coverage products.
In 2006, the company’s TD-SCDMA repeaters and trunk amplifiers passed the joint trials conducted respectively by various base station manufacturers, namely, Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co., Ltd, China Putian and TD Tech, Ltd. The company uses its wireless coverage products in three primary function areas: indoor distribution, outdoor coverage and base station coverage extension.
Indoor Coverage: The company’s indoor coverage products support various transmission protocols, such as CDMA and GSM networks (1,800 MHz and 900 MHz), PHS, TD-SCDMA and other networks. The company also provides point of interface, or POI, products that are capable of supporting multiple protocols simultaneously, which offers coverage platform solutions in subways, indoor stadiums and other indoor facilities.
Outdoor Coverage: The company designs its outdoor coverage products to provide wireless coverage in specified geographic and topographic regions. The company’s outdoor coverage products are typically used in areas, such as ighways, railways, subways and tunnels.
Base Station Coverage Extension: The company’s base station coverage extension products are typically attached to base stations. It uses base station amplifiers and tower amplifiers to extend a base station’s coverage in all its surrounding directions or to improve its coverage distance in designated directions. The company’s base station coverage extensions are typically used in remote outdoor environments, such as rural regions, seashores and mountainous areas.
Services
The company’s integrated design, engineering, and production processes allow the company to provide wireless coverage services to its customers.
Design Services: At the outset of each project, its design team implements a series of tests to evaluate its customer’s specific network coverage on the project site and identify any network deficiencies. These tests include magnetic environment, base station signals and coverage tests.
Installation of Wireless Coverage Products: The company uses approximately 100 contractors across China, all of whom are independent third parties. The company tests the products at the customer’s premises.
Project Warranties: The company provides service warranties to its wireless coverage customers for a period typically ranging from one to three years following the final inspection of its wireless coverage products. During the warranty period, the company agrees to repair or replace defectively installed products and to provide other warranty services to its customers, such as a centralized Internet-based system to monitor the performance of its wireless coverage products and regular on-site inspections of its installed wireless coverage products. In addition, the company provides other warranty services such as online technical support and telephone hotline support to its customers.
Selected Completed Projects
The company completed 10,539 projects in 2006.
RF Parts and Components
In addition to the provision of wireless coverage products and services, the company also develops, manufactures and supplies RF parts and components for base stations and repeaters. RF parts and components are essential building blocks for all forms of wireless communication products. RF parts and components can be classified into active and passive modules. Active modules contain electronic components, such as transistors and diodes and require external power to operate. Passive modules do not contain any electronic components. They rely on a combination of integrated circuits and magnetic fields emitted by their components to function. The company produces both active and passive modules.
The company’s active modules include RF power amplifiers, low-noise amplifiers, frequency-hopping modules and high-stability/low-phase noise vibrators. The company’s passive modules include filters, duplexers, multi-frequency splitters, combiners and couplers and antenna.
Base Station RF Parts and Components
The company focuses on developing base station RF parts and components. RF parts and components are major building blocks of base station and also the most crucial step in the manufacturing of base stations.
Repeater RF Parts and Components
The majority of the repeater RF parts and components that the company produces are used in the manufacture of its own repeaters. The company’s RF parts and components support a range of communication protocols, including CDMA, GSM, PHS, TD-SCDMA, WCDM and other wireless communication protocols.
Sales and Marketing
As of December 31, 2006, the company had 28 offices covering 30 provinces and municipalities in China.
Customers
The company provides its wireless coverage products and services to local affiliates of the two wireless operators in China, the China Unicom group and the China Mobile group. It also provides a portion of its wireless coverage products and services to the China Netcom group and the China Telecom group. It operates as a supplier of RF parts and components to six major domestic and foreign base station manufacturers, which are Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, ZTE Corporation, Datang Mobile Communications Equipment Co., Ltd., Alcatel Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd, Siemens AG Communications and TD-Tech, Ltd.
Competition
The company’s competitors include Comba Telecom Systems Holdings Limited, Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, Andrew Corporation, Radio Frequency Systems, Powerwave Technologies, Inc., Wuhan Fingu Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. Mobi Antenna Technologies (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. in China, Sagem Communication, and Allgon Mobile Communications, Inc.
History
China GrenTech Corporation Limited was founded in 1999.
