DBTEL forays into India with pack of mobile sets

Taiwan based mobile manufacturer, DBTEL has ventured into the Indian market
with its different set of mobile handsets. The company has launched a range
comprising of 11 models of mobile phones in the candy bar and clam shell style.
"All these products will cater to different market segments and very soon,
we will be launching 12 more models in the country," said Levis Hsu, Senior
VP, (Sales Division–Asia pacific), DBTEL Inc.

"All the mobile phones laun-ched by the company feature 65,000
high-resolution color displays as compared to the 256 to 4096 color display
mo-bile phones currently available in the Indian market," he added.

Commenting on the timing of its foray in India, Levis infor-med that Indian
market is one of the fastest in terms of growth and the fact that air tariff
within the country are considered as the lowest in the world, makes it one of
the most lucrative markets.

"We were in India for about two years and have seen treme-ndous growth
in terms of tele density within the country. As of now, there is a bit of
slow-down in the grey market and people are buying from the vendors so that’s
a positive sign for us. There is a lot of potential in the country and the
market is just opening up . It is the ideal time for us to make a foray. We are
expecting to sell about 50,000 mobile phones per month in all segments starting
from next month onwards," Hsu added.

With an aim to market its product, the company has app-ointed Chennai based
Munoth Communication as its national distributor for its range of pro-ducts in
the country. Munoth is having a regional distributor network of about 40
partners spread all across the country for reselling the product into different
regions. "By the end of next week, we will be having more than 2,500 dealer
show-rooms all over the country. We are also planning to introduce a series of
camera phones in India very soon. All these initia-tives will help us in
achieving our target of capturing 20 per-cent market share by the end of 2004
within India," informed Jaswant Munoth,MD, Munoth Communications.
Emphasizing that the pricing of the products has been made according to the
Indian market dynamics, Munoth added, "We are catering to all the market
segments and we have a start-ing price of Rs 4,250, which can go upto Rs 15,750
depending upon the model".

Accepting the fact that ser-vice is a major issue with the industry today,
Munoth infor-med that the company is having a tie up with Chennai based Accel
ICIM for after-sales ser-vice issues. "We are not going to take any chances
with service and this is the reason that we have different levels when it comes
to servicing. Accel will be responsible for level 2 and level 3 service issues,
while level 1 service will be taken care of by our 2,500 stores spread all
across the country, making it possible to address service issues pro-mptly,"
Munoth explained.

CyberMedia News Service

Chennai