Google's Android is raise steam in China with both big and small mobile phone makers, and the OS is set to move even further down the price chain in coming months. Small Chinese companies in the southern city of Shenzhen, which is infamous for its bustling markets full of knock-off electronics, are more and more putting the Google OS in phones.

Chinese "bandit" phone manufacturers, who run on wafer-thin margins and sell only some smartphones, have keep away from Android so far partly because the chipsets that make it run well are costly. But future products from companies like Taiwanese chipset vendor MediaTek are expected to help push prices down. For now, Chinese giants like Lenovo and Huawei Technologies are before now using Android in phones, and they are being joined by much smaller companies.

Apanda is one hatchling Shenzhen company whose only phone so far uses Android. The phone, with a 3.2-inch touchscreen and released late last year as a WCDMA handset, will also be launched with support for the homegrown Chinese 3G standard, TD-SCDMA, a company spokesperson said in a recent interview.

Apanda was selling the smooth phone, called the A60, for US$290. The phone has a 5-megapixel camera, version 1.6 of the Android OS and a Qualcomm processor. But it does not come with the Android Market because Apanda has its own application download store, the company spokesperson said.