More CDMA handsets enter RI market

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)