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Hyundai launches mobile phones in India

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CIOL Bureau
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MUMBAI: Hyundai Mobile, a unit of South Korea's Hyundai Corp., said it would start selling mobile phones in India, joining the ranks of firms seeking a slice of the world's fastest-growing major mobile market.



Hyundai will sell a wide variety of phones imported from Korea, and may consider setting up a local production facility in the next three to four years, said Vijay R. Singh, managing director of the new unit, Hyundai India Telecom Ltd.



"There is huge potential in the market, as India is quite under penetrated," he said at a news conference. "We would also look at making India an export hub after we begin production."



The products will be priced at between 3,590 rupees and 100,000 rupees and the firm is targeting a base of 10 million users in India over the next five years.



Hyundai Mobile, which already sells phones in other Asian markets, parts of Latin America and the Middle East, aims to have 30 percent of the global mobile phone market in five years.



India has more than 43 million mobile users, and the number is widely expected to more than double next year. Only four in 100 people own a mobile phone in India, compared with more than 25 in 100 in China.



That has attracted mobile phone makers such as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Philips.



LG said last month it would begin making mobiles in India in early 2005. It plans to invest $60 million in the facility by 2010, and make 20 million units a year by then, of which half would be exported.

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