Pragati Simlote
NEW DELHI: With cell phone users outnumbering those using landlines, mobile handset manufacturers are looking at ways to increase their geographical reach and to penetrate the existing markets better.
The total number of cell phone users stood at 65.05 million at the end of September 2005. Cell phone manufacturers are now manufacturing phones suited to Indian needs to tap the market better.
With local language computing becoming a reality, the trend of providing local/regional language support is becoming increasingly popular with mobile phones also. According to Nokia India Pvt Ltd MD Sanjeev Sharma, “All entry and mid-range phones from Nokia support Hindi. Nokia 1600 and 1110 support five-language user interface (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil and Bengali), while Nokia 6030 supports nine-language user interface (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Punjabi). With this, we cover about 80 percent of the Indian population.”
He added, “Currently, phones supporting local languages are being sold in the States where that specific language is being spoken. The company is planning to market some phones, which support all the regional languages, all over India. For this, the company is currently studying the demand pattern.”
Samsung is also providing local language support on many of its phone. Samsung D500, besides supporting messaging in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Bengali and Punjabi, also supports menu in Gujarati and Kannada.
The Samsung N700 supports five different regional languages and features a multi-language dictionary to support easy and intuitive SMS.
Other phones from the company's stable with local language support include Samsung SGH N380 and Samsung SGH C210 and Samsung SGH E730, Samsung SGH E 530 and Samsung SGH E 880.
Another player in the Indian mobile handset market, Sony Ericsson also provides Hindi SMS on its mobile phones. Sony Ericsson India GM Sudhin Mathur said, “We were the first mobile company to provide predictive Hindi text on our mid to low-end phones. We are currently researching the market needs to identify introducing more regional languages on our phones.”
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