It?s only in recent times that companies across genres have started thinking about what women want. Just imagine, until a few years ago, did you find a laptop, or a mobile phone, or for that matter a motor vehicle especially designed for women? For long the fairer sex has had to compromise and under the tag name of ?unisex?, have been forced to ignore the special wants of a girl only to use products made for men.

Although now, we have laptops coming with exchangeable colourful back covers and a few scooties that have managed to attract the eye of a girl, any effort to woo a girl?s desires has been completely ignored by mobile handset companies. A few phones like Nokia N8 Pink, Blackberry Pearl, and Motorola Razr2 were slightly famous among girls; a dedicated effort to produce a product for females in the mobile handset category has been overtly avoided mainly for the perceived risks.

Of late, the scenario is undergoing a sea change and reality is that women are already buying nearly as many mobile phones as men. Not only that, today?s fashion savvy women expect style in their gadgets too. Be it a camera or mobile phone, her gadget has to be up-to-date in terms of style and applications.

Not surprising, delivering stylish, fashionable and feature-rich phones for female mobile users has become a key focus for mobile handset makers. In recent months, they have introduced a slew of handsets with sophisticated features. Prominent among them include Nokia X5 (R9,423), Micromax Q55 Bling (R8,500) and Bling 2 (R8,000), Samsung Corby Mate (R7,300), Alcatel Ice 3 (R6,500), among others.

Before buying them, one should look for some attractive features in them like Bluetooth, camera, music player, memory capacity and of course the battery back-up. It is a matter of great delight that these gadgets can be availed at reasonable prices along with different schemes and offers and women can save lots of their money by buying these tempting devices from leading mobile handset makers.

Lava Mobile co-founder and director SN Rai says, ?Traditionally, male preferences dominated the market for mobile phones, but as more and more women join the workforce and become socially and economically independent, they are enforcing their own choice and have become key decision makers in a household. We are constantly trying to come out with well designed phones and this week itself, we are launching an MTV phone. It has attractive wall papers and is a good looking musical phone; some thing which women also like.?

Analysts aver that women are more likely to do a thorough research before buying a product and are also less likely to get influenced by advertisements. No doubt handset marketers are aware of this statistics and thus highlight appealing features such as plenty of multimedia options and social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter, etc on their devices.

Micromax Informatics? head of marketing, Pratik Seal says that the company has sold more than 1.5 million units so far of Micromax Bling 1 & 2 handsets. ?We came out with a feminine phone called Bling in 2010. We first started with small compact phone with a mirror. Later, we added Swarovski buttons and embellishments to it.? He opines that targeting phones made especially for women requires a definite marketing strategy and useful features, keeping modern day women in mind. ?Market research shows that the penetration of mobile phones among women has increased from 5% in 2008 to 10% in 2010 and 14% by early 2011. Therefore, the segment has latent market potential and an insightful approach is required. Minor cosmetic changes like adding pink colour to the handest won?t work,? he adds.

Micromax Bling 2 is an out-and-out ladies? handset, made with Swarovski zirconia that gives it a feminine charm. Flaunting a 7.1-cm capacitive screen, the handset has a decent 3 MP camera and supports 3G connectivity. Further, MiRoamer (Mobile radio), Saavn (Music on Demand), Mosho (Mobile shopping), Mundu Live TV and Whats app are some of the apps to keep women thrilled.

Early this year, a Nielsen report on technology found that women are most likely to adopt new technology when it is social and relevant, that is, when it seamlessly improves their day-to-day lives. With a range of stylish and

feature-rich phones available, women?especially young girls?are just as likely to upgrade their communication devices as men.

Gadget?s gender gap is obviously closing fast.