China Orders Increase in Cell Phone Handsets

China’s government ordered mobile-phone makers to increase production of handsets to help China United Telecommunications Corp. expand use of a new wireless network based on technology developed by Qualcomm Inc.

The government ordered 12 of the 19 licensed makers of code-division multiple access, or CDMA, cell phones to have 700,000 units ready by early May, according to manufacturers who attended a government meeting last week and asked not to be identified.

Qualcomm, which charges licensing fees for use of its standard and sells chips based on those patents, fought for a decade to get a CDMA network built in China.

China United, with 28 million customers, has only 439,000 users on its CDMA network, blaming slow growth on a handset shortage.