Upper end of the spectrum

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: per month, compared to 5,500 units sold by Blackberry.

Everyone expects 2008 to be an eventful year for the high-end category of mobile phones. Vendors like Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, HTC and LG would have a minimum of five to eight new handset models in the second half of 2008.

Majority of the mobile phone bigwigs are lining up some of the best designed high-end feature phones in the next few months. Having launched six new high-end phones, Samsung will launch few more before the year ends. “We have moved up from number four to two in mobile phone business in the last eight months in India,” says Sunil Dutt, country head, Samsung Telecommunications India. Samsung is also strengthening the touch screen handset portfolio with the launch of Omnia. The Samsung 3G-enabled Omnia will be priced at Rs 40,000. 8GB and 126GB versions wil have features like extendable memory cards, satellite navigation support and will run on Windows mobile 6.0.

“The market has become exciting for us. We expect the growth in the high-end segment to continue, especially with 3G becoming a reality,” says Lloyd Mathias, director marketing India and South West Asia for Motorola mobile devices. “In the high-end category, we have wide competitive offerings and phones, ranging from ROKR E6 priced at Rs 10,400 to Rs 25,000 of RAZR2 V8.”

Motorola plans to add many more in the next few months. Story is no different at Sony Ericsson, which is planning several new exciting models in the high-end segment. “Some of these include the much anticipated X1I from our new Xperia series. The Xperia X1 is our first Windows Mobile smartphone that combine slick looks with a powerful multimedia entertainment and Web applications platform,” says Sudhin Mathur, general manager, Sony Ericsson India.

LG is planning to launch five to six more phones in the high-end category. “In the smartphone category, the consumers are asking for more functionality like high resolution camera, high memory to store music, pictures, and multimedia messages with touch screen facility. All these are driving our mobile business,” says Anil Arora, head, mobile business, LG Electronics India.