Siemens launches four new models

Tony Hotland, Jakarta

Siemens mobile, the mobile communication group of Siemens AG, launched on Friday four new cellular phone models as part of efforts to win a larger market share in Indonesia's mobile phone market.

The four new models are the C65, CX65, M65 and S65, which cover the entire spectrum from an entry-level phone to a sophisticated high-end device featuring a 1.3-megapixel camera.

"With a population of about 220 million inhabitants, Indonesia is one of the strategic growth markets in Asia for the company," Lothar Pauly, a member of the managing board in charge of Asia at Munich-based Siemens Information and Communication Group, announced during press conference here on Friday.

He said that Siemens wanted to get more mobile phone users interested in its new products, to significantly increase its current market share of 9 percent in Indonesia.

The number of mobile phone users increased by 60 percent last year and today totals at least 20 million users. The figure is projected to rise to 60 million by 2008.

With such an enormous network expansion prospect, Siemens offers its "SmartInspire" as an end-to-end solution for regions with low average revenue per user.

The solution's compact equipment package and flexible network utilization options enable cellular phone network operators to cost-effectively serve even smaller, lower-revenue regions.

Indonesia is the second largest Asian market for Siemen's mobile communications group, which earned an estimated 400 million euros (US$ 477 million) in sales in the country last year.

After being in Indonesia for almost 150 years, Siemens claims to hold 38 percent of Indonesia's mobile network market share.

"Last year, the group's total sales in Indonesia increased by 80 percent which was boosted by a power plant contract. Nearly 50 percent of our business here comes from the telecommunications sector," the president director of Siemens Indonesia, Juergen Lagleder, was quoted by DPA.