Siemens Logo Dropped From Mobile Phones

Taiwan consumer electronics group BenQ is to start putting its own logo on the mobile phones it acquired from German electronics giant Siemens from spring 2007, BenQ's marketing chief Jerry Wang said in a newspaper interview published Friday. BenQ acquired Siemens' loss-making mobile phone handsets division in June and, as part of the deal, bought the right to use the Siemens logo on the phones for a period of five years. But Wang told the German business daily Handelsblatt that BenQ would start replacing the Siemens logo with its own from 2007. "In countries where BenQ is not yet known as a mobile brand, we will use the name Siemens for another 18 months," Wang said. Siemens finally sealed the fate of its mobile phone handsets division in June, agreeing to pay BenQ about 300 million euros ($363 million) to take the loss-making business off its hands. The deal comes into effect at the beginning of October.