Cellular phones must-to-have gadget for Jakartans

Remmy Faizal, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

Sri could not conceal her amazement when the pushcart vendor from whom she normally buys vegetables and meat offered her his cell phone number.

"He told me to SMS him the night before whenever I needed meat," said Sri, who lives in Rawa Jati, South Jakarta. "I made him show me his cell phone just to make sure. He does actually have one."

Cellular phones have become one of man's (and woman's) best friends. Unlike in the recent past when they were still considered a luxury, cell phones are today owned by Jakartans of various backgrounds, and for a variety of reasons.

Making an appointment with the family doctor, checking how the children are at school, getting the electrician to check on the meter at home or just ordering one kilogram of fresh clams from the Muara Angke fish market in North Jakarta is now only a cell phone call away.

The Roy Morgan Research organization has looked into the phenomenon. One of its surveys, conducted in association with Colin Benjamin, shows that over 20 million people in Indonesia either own or regularly use cell phones.

Observers give several reasons for lower cell phone prices nowadays, besides the tight competition among cellular phone manufacturers that have made their products more affordable over the last few years.

"The main market here in Indonesia is still for the obsolete second generation cellular phones even though third generation phones have already entered the country. That's why the prices are lower now," explains Rudiantara, secretary-general of the Indonesian Cellular Telecommunications Association (ATSI).

Second generation handsets, in general, can only provide limited data access compared to the state-of-the-art technology that third generation (3G) handsets offer.

Market researchers AC Nielsen Indonesia found in a recent survey conducted in Jakarta that consumers were attracted to cellular devices that had various additional functions, such as a camera, an MP3 player, games and a large memory.

The operators and producers, according to Rudiantara, are trying more and more to reach the lower income brackets.

"Indonesia is the largest used cellular phone market in the world. Take Roxy (in Central Jakarta), for example. You won't find a second-hand market as big as that abroad," he said.

Rudiantara also said that cellular operators are competing among themselves to lower the entry barrier to subscribers.

The association of cellular service providers here expects total subscriber numbers to reach 29 million by the end of this year, compared to 25 million earlier this year.

"SIM cards are practically free," he added.

Some operators even offer new SIM cards for only Rp 7,500, plus a bonus of Rp 15,000's worth of phone credits, besides the wide variety of features they offer, including horoscopes, foreign exchange information, ring tones and daily trivia quizzes with prizes.

Besides the decline in prices, Rudiantara said many people bought cellular phones as owning one made them feel "whole".

"People also realize that owning a cellular phone is no longer an exercise in consumption but that it can also be put to use for productive purposes," he said.