Hot smartphones in India market

BANGALORE, INDIA: The India mobile handsets market is expected to grow 25 per cent by volume in 2011 to 210 million units over the 2010 figure of 167 million.

Market research firm CyberMedia Research expects the smartphone market to carve out an even more dramatic growth among Indian users. According to the research firm, the sales of nearly 12 million smartphones expected in 2011 represent a near 100 per cent growth over the sales of smartphones in 2010.

According to Naveen Mishra, Lead Analyst, India Telecoms Practice, CMR, the proportion of smartphones as a percentage of total mobile handset shipments in the India market is expected to grow from 3.6 per cent in 2010 to 5.7 per cent in 2011.

Here we take a look at the 'hot-smartphones' in the India market

Apple iPhone4

Nearly a year after its launch in the foreign markets, Apple's iPhone 4 hit store shelves in India late in May. Mobile phone carriers Airtel and Aircel are the operators who launched the iPhone 4.

Schemes

Mobile services giant Airtel is offering up to 50 per cent savings (per month) in the form of free talk time from Airtel to Airtel, with plans ranging from Rs 600 to Rs 2,000.

A person opting for the Rs 2,000 pack will save Rs 1000 a month thus saving Rs 24,000 over a period of two years, according to Airtel. In this, Airtel is offering 1900 minutes of Airtel to Airtel calls, 1,350 MB of data at 3G speed apart from 2,000 local SMS free. For Rs 600 plan you will get 550 minutes of Airtel to Airtel local calls, 500 local SMS and 300 MB of 3G data. There are 7 plans that Airtel is offering.

Aircel has introduced a new pricing model, allowing customers to recover the upfront cost of the smartphone on select plans over 24 months, the company said. On the other hand Aircel will charge Rs 34,500 for iPhones with a 16 GB capacity and Rs 40,900 for the 32 GB model.

Samsung Galaxy S II

This spring, Samsung launched the Galaxy S II, a new flagship member of its Android smartphone lineup. As part of its new Teardown Research Service, ABI Research has dismantled, analyzed, and tested the device down to the component level. The conclusion? If you are looking to keep up with the latest technology in 2011, the Galaxy S II is a good place to start.

According to James Mielke, ABI Research vice president of engineering, “Samsung started from scratch with this phone: almost every component is new. Its application processor is the most powerful on the market at present. It is the first to use the Samsung Exynos 4210 dual-core application processor (a competitor to NVIDIA’s dual-core Tegra 2). The name Exynos combines Greek words for ‘smart’ and ‘green,’ indicating Samsung’s energy-efficiency goals for the design.”

Major changes on Galaxy S II include:

• Exynos dual-core apps processor. 118.8 mm2 die size with amperage specs roughly similar to the Tegra 2.
• New single-packaged multi-band multi-mode PA from RFMD.
• New CMOS-based antenna switch.
• New lower-power XMM6260 cellular chipset from Infineon.

Price: Around Rs 30,999

HTC DesireS

Handset maker HTC Corporation launched its HTC Desire S smartphone in India during April. HTC Desire S runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS.

With a 3.7-inch screen, 1GHz processor, 768MB RAM and 1.1GB memory, the new phone weighs 130 grams. It has a fully touch LCD screen with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels and also has a 5 megapixel camera. It also has a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera.

HTC launched Desire S, which was first displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, is seen as a successor to the popular HTC Desire.

Specification:

• Comes with a 3.7-inch screen
• 1GHz processor
• 768MB RAM and 1.1GB Memory

Price: Around Rs 25,490

BlackBerry Storm2

The RIM BlackBerry Storm 2 brings some welcome additions, such as Wi-Fi, updated software, and a better touch interface, but it's going to face some serious competition from upcoming touch-screen smartphones.

BlackBerry's primary advantage over all Android smartphones is its Desktop Manager desktop client, which lets you easily sync PIM information and load photos, video and music. The manager even enables you to load unprotected music files from iTunes. As for the Storm 2's screen ratio, it's an almost analog TV-like 4:3 rather than the wide screen 16:9 (and wider) models found on competing Motorola Droid phones.

Specification:

• Wi-fi
• Updated software
• Improved touch interface