Motorola to boost cell phone sales
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Motorola is planning to boost its cellular phone sales in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, with new market strategies, as announced by Motorola's newly appointed Southeast Asia corporate vice-president Scott Durchslag on Tuesday.
He admitted that other cellular phone competitors such as Nokia, SonyEricsson and Siemens had dominated the Southeast Asia market for the past few years, Motorola was only able to seize eight percent of the total market shares in Southeast Asia, and managed to take 18 percent of the global market share, after a 60 percent fall in sales in 1999.
Scott said that Motorola was planning to increase its investment by approximately 100 percent over last year's to claim a bigger market share, especially in Asia.
"Southeast Asia, with a combined population of more than 500 million people, holds tremendous growth opportunities and is a very important component of our global strategy," he said.
Therefore, it plans to change the market strategy by focusing more on cutting edge design and technology, and easier user- interface. Motorola is working together with Microsoft to develop software for the MPx200 phone, which designed for mobile professionals. Motorola is also using Java and Linux for other types of cellular phones targeted at the young generation.
Besides software developers, Motorola was also looking forward to working together with local operators, such as Telkomsel or Indosat, Scott said.
Responding to the new third generation (3G) technology, Scott said that Motorola would market EDGE-enabled handsets by the end of next year in Indonesia. EDGE is a pathway from GSM leading to the 3G technology. He added that some of the high-end phones displayed during the media-briefing were EDGE-enabled.
Meanwhile, Motorola Operations Manager Agus Pranata said that Motorola would launch its new products around January next year, and had already planned for several promotion roadshows in shopping malls, schools and universities next year. Agus hoped that by the end of next year, Motorola would double its cellular phone sales in Indonesia.