Wireless Federation

This year christmas will bring stress for Apple’s iPhone as Vodafone has confirmed an exclusive deal to provide the first touchscreen phone made by BlackBerry. The BlackBerry storm brings revolution in touch screen market with “clickable” touch screen that prevents a user accidentally sending an email or making a call just by touching the screen, will be free for anyone willing to sign up with Vodafone to a £35-a-month contract. A pre-pay version is still under planning process. This time the focus is completely shifted to consumer market rather than corporate market which is already dominated by BlackBerry devices. It is going to encounter stiff competition at christmas from the Apple phone and two other recently announced touchscreen devices, the G1, which uses Google’s Android software and is exclusive to T-Mobile, and the 5800 XpressMusic from Nokia, which Orange confirmed that it would be stocking, although it is unclear if it will be out by Christmas.

With an aim to enter urban, semi-urban and rural markets, HFCL Infotel Limited proclaimed the launch of colored handsets of its Ping brand of mobile at a rate of Rs 499 in the Punjab market. G. D. Singh, COO, HFCL Infotel Ltd, said, “Our aim is to make telephony available to people in all walks of life”. This handset comes bundled with a predefined activated mobile number which can be recharged with special tariff packs for Rs. 151, Rs. 201 or Rs. 251. The local call rate of one paisa per second and STD at Rs 1.50 per minute shall be available on these plans. On top of it the subscribers can enjoy the validity of 30 days and STD call rate of rupee one per minute on the minimum recharge coupon of Rs. 33. Ping, CDMA mobile service and has subscribers base of 2.5 lakh within a year of launch, Singh said.
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HTC (High Tech Computer) is eyeing Indian booming mobile market.  As it plans to vend one million touch-screen mobile devices to Indian consumers by 2010. According to Country Head, Ajay Sharma, the local mobile market had “only seen the tip of the iceberg” of what the company had to offer. HTC was expected to launch a number of new 3G devices to meet the growing needs of subscribers, Sharma stated.

Considering the current scenario, HTC sells 13 handset models in the Indian market, including 11 global systems for mobile communications (GSM) phones and two code division multiple access (CDMA) phones - priced between Rs10, 000 and Rs.30, 000.

Recently, HTC unveils the Touch HDTM, an entertainment-focused mobile handset.  HTC also manufactures the Touch Viva, a 2.8-inch touch-screen mobile device that offers quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity, a two megapixel camera and a MicroSD slot for expandable storage.

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Vodafone in partnership with GoSpoken will launch a new service that will bring books to mobile handsets. This service will be offered between £5 and £15 and any purchases will be added to monthly Vodafone bills. High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology, will help in providing faster data speeds this implies that a three-hour audio book can be downloaded in three minutes. Currently, Vodafone UK is piloting a unique service that enables all UK mobile users to send text messages from their Facebook profile to friends.

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In UAE most of the people prefers basic connectivity rather than lots of value-added services. Andrew Grenville, executive vice president of carrier services at du, said in this case I will say B2B I mean back to basics. The services you move into massively depends on the market you’re moving into. Some are more open than others, in some the regulators are strong, in others they are less so, he continued. du expects to begin developing VAS in the next two to three years. Grenville further said that du expects to begin developing VAS in the next two to three years. Currently, du is not planning to expand outside UAE. After Etisalat, du has became the second operator to begin offering services in the United Arab Emirates and recently in August it obtained government approval to offer Research in Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry inturn increases the competitive presurre on the incumbent which also offers the popular business handsets. According to Grenville, incumbents can be quite resistant to liberalisation because they see these new players coming in and destroying value, but it’s actually just new players coming in and trying to grow their business. Now the market will determine what works, he added.

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Nokia is now working on the expansion of its online content-sharing site. To compete with other contenders like Apple and Microsoft, Nokia is in Sync with Ovi. Users of Nokia phones can now synchronise their contact lists and calendars with an online calendar and address book. To this begining there are shortcomings too as the company is approaching the offerings as a mobile-phone developer as opposed to a software or online services developer. This service is similar to Apple’s MobileMe, but have some differences, too, whereas MobileMe pushes changes to and from the iPhone, Ovi synchronises the changes per user commands. Both Ovi and MobileMe allow users to upload ages from the device to an online site and remotely access files. MobileMe offers an email service, but Ovi doesn’t. Except for a prmium version Ovi is free but MobileMe costs £59 per year.

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MTN instigated its community telephoning with 650 telephone boxes spread across five states. The company’s Brand Manager (Xtraconnect), Mrs Saidat Lawal-Mohammed, said that the project was designed for the low income class that cannot afford to buy and maintain handsets. Lawal-Mohammed said the community phone is at  discounted rates, as the company is set to make telephone available to all Nigerians at a pocket-friendly rate, adding that to call  any network through the line costs only N22 per minute and 37 kobo per second. Customer can a get a SIM card which allows accessibility to the service for as low as N150, and buy recharge cards for as little as N100 for a wide range of opportunities enjoyed by  mobile handset users, including voice and text messaging, she added.

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According to the latest figures, Nokia rules nearly 40% of the world’s mobile phone market. Report reveals that Nokia sold 12.4 million mobiles in the second quarter of 2008. It is beleived that Nokia has the best portfolio in the market to deal with the slowing economy. It is quite well known that western population is burdened with inflation, Nokia is offering mobile phones at a ultra low cost to developing countries which is attracting the buyers. A report forecasts that Nokia sales to increase in the second half of 2008 because of its touch-screen device that will now be more high mid-tier than high-tier. Samsung and LG have both increased their market share by two per cent but Motorola and Sony Ericsson have been less competitive. Motorola’s market share dropped by 4.5 per cent since last year while Sony Ericsson’s decreased by 1.4 per cent. Moreover Motorola lacks 3G and hot applications such as GPS and good-quality internet browsing. The company is refurbishing its strategy to increrase the sales may have to cut prices as it lacks good features.

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According to a report, With the increase of economic difficulties growth in worldwide mobile telephones will slow sharply in 2008. Research unit predicted that 11 per cent growth in global sales to 1.28 billion units this year, down from a rise of 16 per cent in 2007. Further it said that sales reached nearly 305 million in the second quarter, a rise of 11.8 per cent on a year earlier. The report reveals that the economic environment continued to negatively impact mobile phones sales in both mature and emerging markets. Considering mobile handset maker giants, statistics shows that Nokia of Finland, sold more than 120 million telephones and augmented its share of the market to just under 40 per cent. Samsung had 15 per cent of the market with 45 million units sold, shooting far ahead of the former world number two, Motorola, on 30 million.

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Top officials of samsung said that Samsung Gulf Electronics aims to double its market share in the mobile phone sector from the current 17 per cent by launching new models with value-added features General Manager of hand help phones division at samsung Gulf Electronics is of a view that as the No 2 player in the market, emerging markets like the Middle East continue to drive growth, especially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 46.3 million mobile handsets has been sold by South Korean vendor in the quarter due to strong demand in emerging markets. Global unit sales for the first half reached 92 million, an increase of more than 20 per cent year-on-year growth. So far the company has launched 18 models and anticipates to launch another 5 models by 2009.

“Samsung has some of the greatest expectations for growth in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom’s telecom regulator estimates the number of mobile users to have risen from just 2.5 million five years ago to 20 million today. In the coming five years mobile penetration rates in the kingdom are expected to catch up with the UAE and Qatar and rise to well over 100 per cent,” Saihgal further said.

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