Handset vendors in the world's fastest growing mobile phone market have worked out the strategies, to be ready for the onslaught of the iPhone.
US-based Motorola, which already has an array of smart phones in the country, recently launched ROKR E8 in India. A music phone, it has features such as FastScroll navigation wheel (a navigation wheel like that in iPods) and haptics technology that transforms the device from a phone to a music player in one touch. This is in addition to other touchscreen phones including the MOTOMING A1200 and MOTOROKR E6.
"Customers are interacting more on their mobile phones - making and receiving calls, messaging, listening to music, taking photographs and sharing content with colleagues among others. As a result, the mobile phone has evolved to a lifestyle device intrinsic to everyday communication," Motorola Mobile Devices Senior Director, Sales & Distribution (India & Southwest Asia), Lloyd Mathias said.
Sony Ericsson is launching several new models in the high-end segment. Some of these include the X1i (a touchscreen phone with Qwerty keyboard and GPS facilities) under its Xperia series, the W980i (Walkman range) and C905i under the Cyber-shot range (with an 8-mega pixel camera).
"We are confident our line-up of current and forthcoming models will help us consolidate our leadership among the top-3 GSM handset players in India," Sudhin Mathur, General Manager, Sony Ericsson India.
Besides the basic telephone service, there is a huge potential for different value-added services in mobiles. We believe the introduction of Next Generation Network in India will truly enable users to experience the power of 3G-enabled handsets, he added.
Nokia, the leader with over 40 per cent of the global market share, is gearing up to offer touchscreen products soon. The Finnish company, which sold 60.5 million devices globally in 2007, has already rolled out 13.3 million converged devices in the second quarter of 2008.
According to a Nokia spokesperson, "The iPhone is an interesting device and it is great to see other companies share our vision of connected multimedia devices. We strongly believe that traditional single-purpose, non-connected devices such as MP3 players and cameras will be marginalised and overtaken by converged multimedia devices in the future."
Samsung is expecting its SCH-M800 Instinct, a high-end touch screen mobile phone, and Samsung F700 (another smart phone) to take on the new iPhone.
Two major GSM service providers - Vodafone Essar and Bharti Airtel - are bringing the iPhone to India.
