Two-in-one phones catch on

In true spirit of a globe-trotter, Pracheta Jha, a product marketing consultant with a leading retailer, bought Spice Mobile's dual-SIM handset 10 months ago. "I thought I will be able to overcome the operator barrier with dual-SIM technology, which can support both my Indian SIM card and an international SIM card," she says.

Today, she is using the handset to avail of the benefit of cheaper call and SMS tariffs offered by operators like Loop Mobile and Bharti Airtel. "I bought Loop Mobile's connection for its affordable value-added services that come in handy while communicating with family and use my Airtel SIM card as the primary number for work," she says.

An estimated 350,000 users buy dual-SIM handsets every month so that they can have two connections on a single device.

Market analysts say 20 million people own dual-SIM handsets. Piyush Joglekar is one of them. This Kolkata-based chartered accountant says: "Since big mobile phone manufacturers have not shown much interest in producing dual- or multi-SIM mobile phones, we have to buy from Tier-II and new vendors like Intex, Spice and MobileStore's in-house brand, Ray."

Joglekar bought a Rs 8,000 Intex dual-SIM mobile phone for his Reliance CDMA connection and Vodafone's GSM connection. The Reliance SIM card allows him to save money on long-distance calls while the Vodafone connection offers cheaper data plans required for professional purposes.

"It is not just about cheaper tariffs," says Rahul Gupta of Strategy Analytics, a research and consulting firm. He says users like Jha and Joglekar reflect the trend in mature markets like Europe, Thailand and Russia. "Indian users are slowly waking up to the trend of multiple-SIM cards and this should make vendors focus on dual-SIM handsets," says Gupta.

Samsung, which has three dual-SIM mobile phone models, priced between Rs 7,000 and Rs 9,000, will launch new products by 2010. According to a Samsung spokesperson, the company will add features like ability to access phone data (like phonebook, SMSes) of the passive SIM connection while using the primary mobile connection.

Spice Mobile has already made a move in that direction. The Spice D-88 Gold handset, priced at Rs 8,999, can support both GSM and CDMA connections. "An active dual mode allows simultaneous calls and messages on both the cards," says Greishma Rai-Choudhury, who bought the phone early this year.

Choudhury, who has Reliance and Aircel connections, says her handset enables her to put calls on hold and to switch between GSM and CDMA connections without re-booting the phone.

If industry estimates are to be believed, a little less than 10 per cent of the 500 million mobile connections are on dual-SIM handsets. Although most telecom carriers are still wary of dual-SIM handsets, vendors like Spice Mobiles are happy to provide dual-SIM and multi-SIM handsets for young executives like Jha and Choudhury, who like to flaunt two mobile connections as a style statement, without having to bother about buying separate handsets.
 

Seeing the surge in demand, many companies are stepping in, say experts. Naveen Mishra, lead analyst (mobile handsets and telecommunication services research), IDC India, says, "New vendors were the first to recognise the trend and launch such mobile phones, using it as their USP to gain market entry and establish their brands. Other leading vendors are likely to launch such devices soon".

It's safe to conclude that mobile-phone users in the country can look forward to many more dual-SIM handsets to manage their multiple connections.