Lenovo Mobile, a mobile phone subsidiary of Lenovo Group, will start piloting mobile phone leasing in Beijing in mid-July, company sources told Xinhua in Beijing Tuesday.

"The average lifespan of a mobile phone has dropped from 21 months to 18 months, which means vast numbers of mobile phones are being discarded," said Li Jianquan, Executive Director of Quality, Service and Administration of Lenovo Mobile.

Mobile phones contain heavy metals, such as lead and beryllium, as well as bromide used as a flame retardant in the circuit boards, all of which are potentially dangerous for humans.

The cadmium contained in a single mobile phone battery can contaminate about 60,000 liters of water.

"Mobile phones, which are small and light, are often tossed into the trash and burned or buried in waste processing, leading to potential leakage of dangerous substances," Li told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. "Mobile phone leasing overcomes that problem, making it possible to deal with discarded phones in a safe and professional manner."

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Market research indicates that students and recent graduates who cannot afford cutting-edge mobile phones, and fashion-driven high-end mobile phone fans who change phones frequently, represent a significant potential market, Li said.

"The cost of the service will be determined by a number of factors like handset cost, model and lease term," he said.

"China's mobile phones don't have fixed numbers. It is easy to transfer data from a leased phone to another handset and customers will keep their SIM cards," Li explained.

"For more details, you'll have to wait until mid-July when we start piloting the service in Beijing," he said. "If everything goes well, we'll roll out the service nationwide."

All the mobile phones concerned by the leasing service will be Lenovo models. The company will choose three other cities to pilot the service apart from Beijing, he said.

There are now 487 million mobile phone users in China with six million new users being added every month, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.

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