TCL Corp., one of China's largest consumer electronics companies, rode on strong overseas shipments to a 77 percent jump in November TV sales, while posting a monthly rise in business at a mobile phone venture with Alcatel.

The company, which vies with Motorola Inc. and Nokia in the world's top mobile phone arena, said Friday sales from its venture with France's Alcatel stood at 717,686 units, up a third from October.

But excluding the Alcatel venture formed in April, TCL's TCL-brand mobile phone unit sales fell 58 percent year on year in November to 363,115 units, its seventh straight month of on-year declines.

TCL sold 867,760 units in the same month the previous year, a notice disclosing monthly sales figures dated Thursday and published Friday in the China Securities Journal shows.

TCL is one of several home-grown firms, including appliances king Haier and mobile phone maker Ningbo Bird, pursuing global ambitions.

TCL said its color television sales on the mainland fell to 861,012 units in November, from 874,923 units in November a year ago. It sold 1,47 million color TVs overseas in November, compared with 442,738 in the same month last year.

The large on-year jump in color TV sales likely reflects contributions from a joint venture formed between TCL Corp.'s Hong Kong-listed unit TCL International Holdings and France's Thomson.

Analysts warn that cut-throat competition in China's mobile phone arena- the world's largest with more than 300 million subscribers- would weigh on players' earnings this year.

Domestic electronics manufacturers are increasingly trying to escape a crowded, margin-squeezed home market.

TCL also makes personal computers, mostly sold within China, the world's second-largest PC market.

Computer sales rose 9 percent year on year to 57,814 units in November, up from a 0.3 percent year-on-year growth in October.

TCL has said it expected sales of 51.7 billion yuan (US$6.3 bil-lion) this year, including exports of US$2 billion.

(Shenzhen Daily December 20, 2004)