Walmart in China to expand online cell phone sales

Yhd.com, an e-commerce website backed by US-based retail giant Walmart, is to aggressively expand the online market for mobile phones and offer competitive prices to attract more buyers.

The site, set up in Shanghai in 2008, was an online grocery initially, but the company has expanded to other products, such as consumer electronics, over the past two years.

Yhd said on Wednesday it hopes to grab a large share of China's online market for mobile phones. "We plan to greatly increase our investment in the mobile phone category, starting this year," Wei Huazhen, vice-president of yhd, said at a Beijing news briefing.

"Selling mobile phones online has become a major focus for various e-commerce companies, because the products are small, easy to transport and have a relatively high profit rate," Wei said.

He added that yhd has seen rapid growth in sales of mobile phones. To gain a leading position in the industry, the company plans to sell some of its handsets for 50 yuan below the price for the same products on the current top e-commerce player's website, Wei said, without naming the rival.

According to German-based research firm GfK, China is expected to sell more than 43 million mobile phones online in 2013, a year- on-year rise of 40 percent. One in every 10 mobile phones sold in the country is sold through e-commerce channels, Sun Kai, analyst with GfK China, said at the same briefing.

Walmart is the biggest stakeholder in yhd.com, with the retail giant acquiring 51 percent in October 2012.