A Chinese company has claimed to have developed the world's first solar-powered mobile phone that uses sun's energy to recharge itself.

The company says a scale-like solar panel on the top side of the clamshell-designed phone can also be recharged by light from other sources including candles.

It can provide 40 minutes of talk-time after sitting in the sun for an hour. Hi-Tech Wealth, a well-known telecommunication products supplier in China, claims its mobile phone is the world's first to use solar power to recharge its battery.

The company says it has developed the most advanced solar power technology and owns eight patents and has applied for numerous others.

Many companies around the world are working on similar mobile phones but their products are still at the experimental stage, Xinhua news agency quoted a company official as saying.

"With more than 400 million mobile phones in the country, China would save a great amount of electricity if all its mobile phones were recharged by light," chairman of Hi-Tech Wealth, Zhang Zhengyu said. He claimed that the lifespan of the battery in the new phone is 2.5 times longer that traditional batteries.

The cost of the solar-powered mobile phone was not provided. The company plans to put six of its light energy mobile phones on the market this year, and another 30 next year, the report said.