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| General Mobile, a global producer of cellular phones since 2005, started producing its "DST 500" model in Turkey, in cooperation with Turkey's Genccel Iletisim and Anek Grup. The companies announced the launch of joint production with a promotion event in the Rixos hotel in Ankara. 3 million devices will be produced in the next three years in the facilities in the Umraniye district. Initially 25% of the devices will be manufactured in Turkey, which will be gradually raised to 50%. The device will both be sold in the domestic market and exported to countries which do not prefer Chinese made products. The device which has a stand by duration of three days, incorporates dual simcards and weighs only 98 grams. Among other features of the device are: TV, FM radio, GPRS, WAP, e-mail, java. The device also boasts a 2.4 inch display and a 3 megapixel camera which can also record videos. The market price of the phone is around 150 USD. Speaking at the promotion event, Turkish Minister of Transportation Binali Yildirim expressed his happiness over General Mobile's choice of Anel Grup as a solution partner, which in his words has been operating in Turkish telecommunications sector for over thirty years. "We are most certain that this initiative will be successful. No one should look down upon our local products," said Yildirim. Yildirim said 700,000 "DST 500" devices were sold in the domestic market, so far, noting that the locally produced devices targeted both the domestic market as well as foreign markets. Necati Genc, Chair of Genccell's Executive Board said, their facility had an annual capacity of one million devices, adding that first local produced "DST 500"s were shipped to Serbia and Croatia last week. Anel Group's CEO, Suat Baysan, said 145 people were employed in their facilities, noting that a total of 1000 people were employed from production phase to sales. |