Telecom handset manufacturer, Samsung has tied up with wireless communications solutions provider Qualcomm, to introduce world’s first open market handset (OMH) in India. Christened ‘Mpower 699’, the OMH technology gives CDMA cellphone customers the flexibility to buy SIM cards from operators of their choice. Sunil Dutt, Samsung’s country head of mobile business, said the company plans to bring out more handsets with OMH technology at different price points. Its first model, launched on Friday, is priced at Rs 7,100. Samsung's Mpower 699 is the world's first CDMA phone to offer this flexbility since the network settings for CDMA connection have shifted from phone to OMH SIM card.
Qualcomm and Indian operators like Reliance Communication and Tata Indicomm have played an active role in developing the technology, while MTS and Virgin Mobile will come out with OMH compliant SIM cards, Qualcomm India and South Asia president Kanwalinder Singh said. “There will be three more launches of OMH phones in India by December and another two by March,” Dutt said. Kanwalinder Singh said OMH handsets play a central role in offering subscribers the choice to change or upgrade their handsets. “With over100 million CDMA subscribers, we expect OMH to play a key role in driving the growth of CDMA in India,” Singh said.
