Panasonic to launch its first color screen mobile

Sudarshana Banerjee

NEW DELHI: Panasonic is planning to launch its new GD 68 color-screen mobile phone this month. The phone is tentatively priced at Rs 11,000. The launch in India would be part of the global launch, informed National Panasonic India, Director, Systems Product Division, Takeshi Ikeda. However, the company has no immediate plans of launching the GD 88 model in the country.

Speaking to CNS, Ikeda informed that the company is planning an aggressive and colorful launch, given that it is the first color screen model of the company to come to India. "The GD 65 has done well. But the dynamics of the legal handset market in India is such that one company may end up having say 20 percent share of the total number of handsets traded in the legal market in one month and only five percent of the same in the next month. There was a lot of hype about Samsung some time back, but it has softened now. When the GD 65 was launched, everybody wanted to have a GD 65," added Ikeda.

Talking of overall market share, Ikeda clarified that Nokia has 50 percent share of the legal handset market in India, the rest 50 percent was divided among various players. On the content front, talks are happening, but nothing concrete by way of a tie-up has happened, said Ikeda.

Features of the GD 68 include full color display screen (256 colors), 16 tone polyphonic ringer, enhanced message serving, GPRS. It is also featured with a standby time of upto 200 hours with a ring tone composer and downloadable games.

(CNS)