apanda A60, the Chinese smartphone invasion begins?

Forgive me for asking philosophically daft questions, but when is a panda not a panda? The answer of course is when it's the latest apanda A60 smartphone from Chinese handset manufacturer apanda, an ambitious Chinese company that aims to take on the big Western smartphone brands, starting with the A60 featured here; an Android 1.6-based product that China Unicom will soon be offering subscribers, with global penetration the eventual end-game. Featuring a price tag of under 400 USD, is this the first of an impending stream of Chinese-made, Chinese-branded smartphone products that will soon be available in the West?

China Unicom also has the Apple iPhone in its portfolio, and this, while rival China Mobile are offering a range of devices from companies like Dell, HTC, and Lenovo known collectively as Ophones. What's notable about all of this is that all the above mentioned companies and devices are Western branded products developed by large Western players, a far cry from the shanzhai offerings in the markets of Shenzhen. Or perhaps not.

apanda might just represent the first Chinese manufacturer to attempt to create a brand around a product that is aimed squarely at competing with the Western powers, as well as carving up substantial local market share. They plan to open over 50 stores in China, a further 5 stores across the straits in Taiwan, with plans for up to 400 more operations in the West. Ambitious?  Yes. Surprised? Not really. apanda are quite possibly one of the first shanzhai companies to reach the necessary levels of maturity that enables such lofty ambitions. In fact we're not even sure that shanzhai is the right term for these guys. Post-shanzhai perhaps?





Here are some specs of the device itself. The main chip that powers the the Android 1.6 OS is a Qualcomm 7727 running at 600MHz, with 256MB of storage for the OS and 256 system memory. The screen is a 3.2 inch touch capable TFT with a HVGA resolution of 320 x 480. In terms of 3G support you have GSM (850/900/18001900) and WCDMA / HSPA 850/1900/2100, which makes it ready for US and European markets. Overall size and dimensions are 116×12.4×57mm, no word on weight yet at this stage.

Here at Shanzai.com we've been analyzing and observing the forces at work in mainland China for best part of a year or more and one thing that we've been saying consistently from day one is that the shanzhai are about more than simply producing cheap knock-offs. Their manufacturing expertise, innovation, as well their sheer speed and ability to react and address market changes, makes them a breed apart from any other manufacturing base in the world. It seemed to us like only a matter of time before one of them stood up and decided to make the great leap into brand creation and eventual Western market penetration.

Looking at the images we've managed to uncover here, you can see that it's a fairly attractive looking device. The software is all Google (Android 1.6) so there should be no problems there. In fact, for an asking price of less than 400 bucks, I'd say that this could be the first of many Chinese-made, Chinese-branded smartphone products from Chinese companies that we used to call shanzhai. Western brands beware.

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