Chennai, Sep 20 (IANS) With phone features likely to get common across models over a period of time, mobile phone maker Nokia India Pvt Ltd is betting on services that could be bundled with the handset for growth.
"The company's strategy is to offer not only a handset but also services like information on agriculture, education and entertainment under the brand Nokia Life Tools," director (sales) at Nokia India Vipul Sabharwal told reporters here Monday while launching a dual sim (subscriber identity module) card handset.
"We have signed up with all the telephony service operators in the country," Sabharwal remarked.
According to him, the handset market is growing at all the price points. The handsets on demand are those having features like expandable memory, wider screen, touch screen, dual sim card and qwerty keyboard phones.
"Over a period of time, phone features will become common and the differentiating factor will be the additional services that are offered. Our strategy is to focus on handsets plus services," Sabharwal said.
Agreeing that Nokia is entering the growing Indian dual SIM handset market a bit late, he said the company will be launching around six models over a period of 6-9 months.
"Once Nokia launches a product and backs it up with media campaign the market dynamics would change," he said when queried about the lead time that competition has over the company in the dual SIM card handset market.
He said the Indian market for dual SIM card holding phones is second only to China in the world but declined to share any market size numbers.
"As per our research entry level consumers need dual SIMs for various reasons including economizing time and costs, improving efficiency and for convenience," he added.
Sabharwal also said the company is focused on selling phones that are compatible with the global system for mobile (GSM) communication technology in India and not handsets that are compatible with alternative technology code division multiple access (CDMA).
"Our current focus is on the GSM space and we will be introducing varied handsets for this technology. We do not find it viable to be present in the CDMA handset market. Our strong belief is in GSM space," he said.
Queried whether the Finnish parent company's idea of re-entering the CDMA space in India is being resisted by the Indian company, Sabharwal said: "There is no difference of opinion between the parent and the Indian company."
For some time, Nokia did sell CDMA handsets and later exited that market entirely, he added while declining to comment on the volumes that would interest the company to re-enter the market.