What's at the core of this smartphone war? (3)

"We seldom sell phones priced at more than 1,500 yuan," said Ma Lulong, ZTE's marketing director for mobiles. "The quad-core is an obvious opportunity for us."

Though the quad-core is well under way, a chip with eight cores has been developed in the lab and is expected to debut next year, according to chip giants like Qualcomm Inc and Mediatek.

"The promotion and marketing for core numbers, the so-called 'core war,' is uniquely effective in China. We had experienced similar scenes in the PC market," said Li.

Computer chip market

The computer chip market used to be a battlefield of core numbers. Giants like Intel and AMD both promoted their products with powerful cores - from single-core to dual-core to quad-core products. Most PC buyers regard the core number as the first thing to consider, even if they aren't tech geeks.

After several years' development, consumers have become more mature in choosing personal computers. They consider a wider range of features, including screen, chip, memory and the power to user experience, especially after the rise of Apple.

Now, even Intel doesn't emphasize core numbers in the smartphone market.

Motorola and Intel Corp jointly launched a new smartphone with an Intel chip inside in Beijing last week. It has a single-core chip. But it features a clock speed of 2 Gigahertz (GHZ), faster than most dual-core or quad-core smart phone with speeds of up to 1.5 GHZ.

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