It's a Mobile Phone

If the camera was the hot feature that propelled mobile-phone sales in the past year, the industry expects high quality digital music to be a key demand driver in the coming year. Ask Sony, which is putting the might of the Walkman in Sony Ericsson phones. Quality music, along with images in phones will require more storage space. Phones with hard disk capacity of 100 megabytes to 4 gigabytes are ready to hit the market. Expect a detachable memory card to become a standard feature within months.

Some breakthrough value additions are awaiting the advent of 3G GSM and WCDMA networks. 3G networks, pending due to wrangles over spectrum allocation, will bring high-speed broadband connectivity to mobile phones. That is expected to open a floodgate of applications for mobile users and a new revenue stream for handset makers and telecom operators (see box: New Usages). It will, for instance, turn a mobile phone into a mobile TV. And couch potatoes won't have to switch off the tube or leave the couch.

Short of these applications, companies are trying what H.S. Bhatia, product group head, GSM, LG Electronics India, calls the fab-feature, advantage, benefit-approach to draw people to value-added features of mobile phones. LG is giving stereo speakers with handsets to encourage people to use phones as music systems. On certain Nokia models, users can download free software that enables the handset to function as a TV remote. Another software picture optimiser helps take better pictures from phones with the VGA camera. Samsung provides dual speakers with some models for improved sound clarity. One of its upcoming models (see box: Coming Soon) can be directly connected to TV to watch videos taken with the phone camera. At Motorola, the inventor of the modern cell phone, the unstated motto seems to be "design leads and engineering follows". Says Lloyd Mathias, director (marketing), mobile devices, Motorola India: "We are playing on the form factor. After all, a mobile phone is an extension of one's personality."

Indians have begun to do more than call from their mobile phones. Between 2002 and 2004, the share of value-added services in the total revenue from mobile services rose from 6 per cent to 9 per cent. This trend is expected to continue in the years to come. Globally, the share of voice in mobile services revenue is set to decline from 85 per cent in 2004 to 72 per cent in 2009.

Local manufacturing of handsets by global giants will ensure some India-specific features in mobile phones. LG started making GSM handsets in October 2005 and Nokia's Chennai plant is likely to roll out phones from April 2006. Companies have already tweaked their handsets to incorporate some India-specific features like louder phone ring, local language keypad and SMS, and a brighter back-light to allow the phone to be used as a torch. Longer battery life and bigger phone books are other typical demands of Indian mobile users. "The peculiarities of the Indian market are getting configured into handsets," says Pankaj Mahindroo, president, Indian Cellular Association.

COMING SOON A pick of mobile phones ready for launch in three months or less. Prices mentioned are indicative and may vary from the actual price.

NOKIA 6280 (Rs 20,000+), Nokia's first slide-up design in India, is a 3G phone with two cameras for video calls; allows fast browsing, visual radio, video ringing tones, 10 MB internal and 64 MB card memory. Weighs 115 g. N91 (Rs 34,000+) is the successor to highly acclaimed N90 in candy-bar design and with 4 GB internal memory. SONY ERICSSON P990i (Rs 30,000+, 155 g) is the first big upgrade of P900i high-end smart phone, is 3G capable and has large (2.8 inch) touch screen, 2 MP camera, 80 MB memory and a QWERTY keyboard beneath the flip-down keypad. W900i (Rs 30,000+) can compete with iPod for music, has 2 MP camera with an 8x digital zoom and supports video calls. MOTOROLA Offshoots of the bestseller RAZR's "form with function" concept, PEBL (Rs 15,000 approx, weight 110 g) has rounded edges, smooth metal finish, twin screens and advanced voice dialling. SLVR L7 (Rs 10,000, weight 85 g) is ultra slim (11 mm) candy bar with memory card slot. It's for people who "did not have time to buy the RAZR". LG P7200 (Rs 22,000 approx, 105 g) is a flip phone with looks suspiciously similar to Motorola's RAZR. It has 2 MP camera, external memory card and a few controls on the flip-top. S5200 (Rs 17,000 appox) has a slide-up design, 1 MP camera and overall looks similar to Samsung's D 500. SAMSUNG SGH D600 (Rs 23,000 approx, 103 g) is an upgraded version of the bestseller slide-up D500 with 2 MP camera and external memory, dual speakers and direct phone-to-TV connectivity. E760 (Rs 18,399, weight 88 g) is a flip-phone with unique motion recognition chip to anticipate you preferences, 1.3 MP camera, 5x zoom. Most of the listed phones will have 262K resolution screen, Bluetooth, MP3 playback, FM radio, expandable memory, USB connectivity and at least 1.3 mega-pixel (MP) camera. All prices are approximate.

Manufacturing in India won't be only for the Indian market. What works in India could work in other developing countries as well. As Mahindroo points out, mobile telephones haven't yet reached two-thirds of the world population. Handsets made in India can cater to these emerging markets. "India is a good testing ground for many handset features such as the colour backlight," says Asim Warsi, AGM, marketing, Telecom Division, Samsung India.

India's low teledensity may actually be an advantage when it comes to adding new features to mobile handsets and services. The validation for this came from no less an authority than Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, the world's biggest mobile service company. Announcing the acquisition of 10 per cent stake in Bharati TeleVentures (worth Rs 6,700 crore) last week, Sarin said, "The countries with low penetration of phones are usually the ones where most innovations come from." The reason is simple. Late start and low initial usage enables countries to make a leap in technology and adapt the most innovative features and applications. Add to this the fact that India will double its working population to 80 crore in 15 years, which will be the largest in the world. Almost all of that population will be a potential mobile-phone user. By all accounts, the revolution has only just begun.

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