A few steps up

RETAIL: Mobile phone manufacturers are now slugging it out in the mid-to-high market segment.

The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid may be alluring, but the lure of the burgeoning mid-to-high segment seems to be getting stronger for mobile phone manufacturers, as they try to moult out of "affordable" utilitarian categories to address the needs of the high-margin lifestyle consumer in India.

Take Korea's LG, a player that made most of its money in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment. It has finally decided to join the ranks of lifestyle phones with the launch of Chocolate, priced at Rs 16,000 apiece. And there are some more premium phones in the pipeline.

"Plans include introduction of a clamshell as part of the Black Label series," says HS Bhatia, national product group head (GSM Mobiles Phones). LG. Launched about seven weeks ago, 400,000 units have already flown off the shelves globally.

BenQ-Siemens, officially launched a few months back, is hoping to make it big in the mid range multimedia phone market. Says Ish Bawa, head (marcom), "Multimedia rich phones in the sub-Rs 10,000 category will drive our penetration in India."

Its recent music phone (E61), at Rs 7,999, is reported to be doing quite well. The Taiwanese firm is looking to launch products in the PDA and camera phone categories later this year.

Spice Mobiles, another new entrant, has successfully used its entry-level monochrome phones as a launch pad. "We will now look to add colour phones in the sub-Rs 5,000 range and also launch a PDA in the lifestyle segment," says Kunal Ahooja, CEO, Spice, which is ready with camera, MP3 and even touchscreen models, all sub-Rs 10,000.

The leader of the pack, Nokia, has not been idle: it has crafted a range of multimedia smartphones, by far the Finnish firm's best work. This segment boasts of its famous N-series, launched earlier this year, priced upwards of Rs 15,000.

Archrival Motorola has bet on colour, with a slew of phones with feminine hues like orange, pink, green and blue, apart from shape and sound effects. Its Razr, Pebl and Slvr have done well with the fashion conscious.

There is clearly more action at the middle and top of the pyramid in India's handset market (seen at over 60 million in 2006) than the bottom.