Raman said it would be an industry-wide effort to drive home the benefits that paging services offer. He is of the view that the paging industry needs to focus on the service industry.

As part of its world-wide restructuring effort, Motorola India has combined its cellular and paging business under a common head. The idea is to better leverage resources and face a common front to the customers, said Raman, who heads both the cellular and paging business in India.

It would mean that the 50-plus service centres the company has across the country would be able to service both cellular phones and pagers, said Raman. This will help to expand the reach of both paging cellular services, he added.

Therestructuring involves redeploying staff and streamlining internal cost functions, he added. The company has a staff strength in excess of hundred.Raman said there are plans to launch new brands of cellular phones and pagers in the coming months.

The company would continue to cater to all segments of the market, said Raman. "Motorola's conscious focus on the price-sensitive segment of the market has paid off," he added.

On an average, 30,000 cellular phones get activated every month. However, the legitimate market for handsets is in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 per month, the rest being covered by the grey market.

The market for pagers has stagnated at around 10,000 a year, said Raman. But recent order by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to increase rentals of cellular and radio paging services is expected to help increase the market size.

Raman said the hike in rentals will improve cash flow of operators which would result in higher allocation of funds for market development.

Itmay be recalled that TRAI had increase rentals for alphanumeric pagers from Rs 250 to Rs 300 and for numeric pagers from Rs 150 to Rs 175.

Sharing his perception on the state of affairs in the paging industry, Raman said the industry has seen a decline in demand all over the world.

India too has been no exception with players making over estimation of the market size. One of the reasons for the slump in demand for pagers has been due the inability of operators to market their services, said Raman. "Failure to create market segments for their service has been a major impediment to growth of the paging industry."

However, this may all change if the industry were to carry out a major marketing exercise, said Raman.