QUALCOMM Inc yesterday launched two chipsets for 3G phones costing less than 1,000 yuan (US$156) each to penetrate the entry-level market in China, where millions of consumers are expected to migrate from 2G phones to 3G smartphones within years.

The US chip designer planned to kick off a new mobile phone platform in the first half of next year with Chinese Internet giant partners such as Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba, to make it easy and fast for phone makers to develop models for the domestic market in China, the world's No. 1 mobile phone market.

Based on Qualcomm's new S4 chipsets and the upcoming Qualcomm Reference Design platform, firms can make 3G smartphones that will cost less than US$150, industry officials said yesterday at a Qualcomm conference in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province.