Thursday, December 23, 2010

Low end phone market in India

G-Five is a Top sellign brand in India. Lava, Onida, Hansum and others are selling few lakhs to a million phone every month. All the phones imported have CE certification and thats good enough to sell in India!
No wonder there are over 100 local brands already. This is just going to only grow further in 2011.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Phones with a Mind

My article titled "Phones with a Mind" appeared in the Financial Chronicle on 26th October 2010. Click on the image to read the article as printed OR follow the the link Phones with a Mind

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Battery life

Battery life of Handset and Tablets will be the next big area for innovation. I saw a solar powered sharp phone recently. Some well funded global go-green initiative is required for some breakthrough. Telecom regulators in all countries should encourage OEMs to use Eco friendly mechanism. Charging from any “light”, not limited to sunlight. Hope to see some breakthrough in Kinetic energy based charging OR Charging through the Antenna.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

MicroMax effect - Is it here to stay

Micromax is the 3rd largest phone seller in India after Nokia and Samsung. It is not surprising that the Tier3 brands ( Micromax, Karbonn, Lava,Olive etc) have over 17% market share comaped to 1% last year!

But will they survive especially with Yuan raising and I also hear about salary costs of Chinese production companies going up. Already sensing these issues, production houses have started to move to Vietnam.

MediaTek, the taiwanese chipset maker thriving on the chinese grey market and the Indian brands like Micromax has sold over 500 Million chipsets!

The fact that cost arbitrage will soon vanish, the Tier 3 brands have a tough task ahead to displace Nokia or Samsung

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Call of Convergence: Smartphone as a "Connected Device"

Click to read the article

My  article  on "Smartphone as a connected device" appeared in in the Hindu Business Line (13th Sep 2010). Have tried to look at Innovation and Convergence as key drivers for the future of Smartphone. The article also discusses the potential for smartphones in Home entertainment and Automotive segments.

Click on the image to read the article as printed OR follow the the link Call of Convergence

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Connected Devices

Everything from the Smartphone to any of the consumer electronics devices ( TV , Camera etc) are part of the larger Connected Devices universe.

I recently read an interesting article in the Financial Times about Google and Apple aggresively trying to gain entry into the Smart TV space ( TV + Web connection)and offer OTT ( Over the Top) services. It looks like US will be a huge market. All Google and Apple products are lapped-up by conusmers in USA ( at least for now). This is like the Microsoft wave during the late nineties.

Home and "In-car" entertainment segments would be the key drivers for the next 3-5 years.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Did BSNL succeed in 3G launch

Well, the answer is yes and no. As a Government organization, it is good to see that BSNL managed to add over 1 million subscribers in about 15 months. But is this good enough? I thought BSNL had a huge early starter advantage and they could have done much better. High speed data would be addictive. They simply could have lured customers to sign by offering freebies ( 3 months of free download upto xGB).

With Airtle planning to launch during Diwali, lets hope the Private operators try to make the most!

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Cisco too in the Tablet market!

Cisco is allset to launch its Tablet - "Cius". Amazon's Kindle, Apple's I-Pad, HP is also getting into this segment. It was a wonderful experience using the i-pad. But honestly, I wonder if there is a good enough market for these Tablet devices. Laptops are becoming thinner and sleeker and Smartphones are getting bigger screens. So what's the need for a Tablet( Ofcourse these carry a huge "show-off" value)?

Friday, June 11, 2010

BWA 40k Crore

Hon Finance Minsiter must be the happiest man of earth. Another 40K Crore. So in all over 100 K crore! Not a bad deal at all!

I wonder how many of these ompanies will survive over the next few years.

Friday, May 21, 2010

80K crore in all!!!

19th May 2010 will be a historic day! The Goverment has earned 67,000 Crore from 3G Auction! BWA expected to get gross about Rs 12,000 crore!

How on earth will the Telcos manage thier Balance sheet and maintain profitability over the next many years? The Top5 will have to dole out Billions of Dollars.With the huge increase in Smartphone usage, it is likely that the Telecos may scrape through. We will have consolidation starting very soon

Undoubtedly what caught everybody's attention was efficient and transparent multi-phase bidding process. Certainly helped in avoiding cartelisation.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Lava, Micromax, Videocon....

The Tier-2/3 Phone market was active for over two years but was limited to your friendly neighbourhood Mobile phone stores. There is a sudden spurt of jazzy advertisements, endorsements from popular cricketers.

It is fair to assume that these new players will atleast create a small dent on the low and Mid segment Phone sales from Tier-1 companies!

Tier 2/3 phones are far better than the imitation( Look-alike)phones from China! May be these players are coming into spotlight as the government blocked IMEI from the chinese imitation phones

INQ looks promising. They seem to have completely soaked into Social networking which undoubtedly is the hot area now.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Killer Apps - What Killer Apps?

Is there something called Killer Apps? Maybe yes, but a quick look at the applications in the Mobile/Internet world, it is quite intriguing to note that successful Apps directly relate to some of the basic desires of man-kind. Example -
Basic Oral/ written communcation( Phones, e-mail/ Messaging)
Searching ( What better word than Google)
purchasing/Shopping ( All the on-line stores)
Playing Games ( All the Gaming Apps).
and ofcourse Gossiping ( FaceBook etc)

Essentially users are willing learn technology that can help them carry out basic tasks efficiently!

So what is the next Killer App?

Have you been "DoCoMo"ed

One of the local News paper carried an intersting Editorial on a new term - "DoCoMoed". Basically means one has been cheated/mis-guided.
Hmmm.. Still Tata has been successful in DoCoMoing many customers to emerge with highest subscriber addition over the past few months! I guess everything is fair:)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Freedom of Choice

Click to read the article
My article on the impact of MNP in the Indian scenario has appeared in Deccan Herald - Business and Economy section.- 1-Feb-2010

MNP is a step towards pushing the service providers to improve their quality of service and fostering competitiveness. This could serve as a catalyst to spur further growth in the mobile industry. Subscribers are sure to benefit from the introduction of MNP and importantly it positively affects subscribers’ psychology with the option to switch “anytime”.


Click on the image to read the article as printed OR follow the link Freedom of Choice

Friday, January 1, 2010

Mobile Number portability

At the outlest let me wish you and your family a very happy prosperous and peaceful 2010!

Mobile NUmber portability ( MNP) which was supposed to be available from today( in Metros) appears to have been delayed as the Dipping fee (Amout to be paid by Operators to the MN provider) is not decided - Rather this is the official reason. TRAI expects 10% of the post paid customers to "switch" operators. It looks like a very aggresive target.
On the other hand we can expect Operators to try and woo customers based on longevity (something like Loyalty points!). Obviously Operators definetly cannot afford to lose Post paid subscibers!!
Powered By Blogger