More CDMA handsets enter RI market
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
As the competition in the mobile telecommunications sector gets tighter, mobile handset producers are rushing to improve their products to tap into Indonesia's vast and potentially lucrative market.
Not only are they marketing Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) technology, but mobile phone manufacturers have also become quite aggressive in promoting the newer Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology.
While the competition for GSM handsets has long been established, CDMA handsets have gained in popularity, particularly after the introduction in October 2000 of CDMA 2000- 1X -- a version that can send data at a speed of up to 153 kilobytes per second (kbps).
By comparison, the advanced third generation (3G) technology in a GSM handset can deliver data at a speed of 64 kbps.
Other applications are also available in CDMA, which operates at a lower frequency than that of GSM, such as high speed mobile internet, location-based services, multimedia messaging, gaming and video conferencing -- all of which add to its rising popularity.
Although it has a smaller coverage area than GSM-based phones, more and more types of CDMA devices are being marketed by mobile phone manufacturers.
Finnish giant Nokia, the market leader in the nation's cellular phone industry since 1998, for example, introduced last week two new CDMA units -- the Nokia 6255 and Nokia 6015, which follow the 10 new types of CDMA units introduced last year.
"The Nokia 6015 is a mid- to low-end product," Nokia's product marketing manager Dominicus Santoso, said.
It features a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) browser, 30- second memo recording and high-speed connection capability for transferring data of up to 153.6 kbp. The 6015 is priced at Rp 1.4 million (US$152), Dominicus added.
As for the 6255, the company said it would hit the market this week. It features bluetooth technology, a camera and a memory capacity that can be upgraded up to 64 megabytes (MB).
"We hope to become a market leader in CDMA technology as we have done in GSM," Nokia's CDMA customer relations manager, Denny Galant told The Jakarta Post.
According to Marketers magazine, Nokia had a 62 percent share in the Indonesian handset market in 2004, nearly double its 32.5 percent share worldwide.
Other top brands are also gearing up to expand by introducing CDMA devices -- either completely new products or expanded production of existing ones.
Director of PT Samsung Electronics Indonesia Lee Kang-hyun said that his company had targeted sales of at least one million new Samsung CDMA handsets this year.
Lee added that if they reached that target, it would boost Samsung's market share from 18 percent last year to 22 percent in 2005.
Meanwhile, PT Sanex Telekomunikasi Indonesia (SanexTel), which has been selling CDMA cellular phones in the country since 2003, has also launched new products with CDMA and GSM technology.
At a presentation last week, SanexTel introduced six GSM handsets -- SG5090, SG5190, SG7190, SG7890, SG7990, K108 -- at prices ranging from Rp 650,000 to Rp 3 million. It also launched two new CDMA products -- SC5010 and SC7210 -- at prices ranging from Rp 975,000 to Rp 1,750,000. (004)