JEDDAH, 24 June 2005 — Innovative mobile phones are entering the ever-expanding Saudi Arabian market. The trend has been all the more since the overturning of a ban on the import and sale of mobile camera phones in the Kingdom.
“As a result, the extremely competitive mobile phone market across the Kingdom and elsewhere in the Middle East has created a need to offer innovative value added services,” a senior executive at LG electronics said yesterday.
Competition in the mobile phone market has been intensifying with the coming to the market of Ettihad Etisalat (Mobily), the Kingdom’s second mobile phone service. Mobily’s claim that it expects to get up to seven million subscribers in the first five years of its operation in the Kingdom has triggered further competition in the market.
“While we introduce a range of new musical mobile phones with several new features that stand out in competition, we’re waiting for the introduction of advanced services including third generation mobile phone technologies enabling the subscriber to receive TV telecasts, in addition to transmission of pictures and other proactive services,” Simon Kim, LG’s senior manager, telecommunications & IT products, told a press conference.
“Mobile phones of youth do not ring so much as they sing, and teenagers are spending more on mobile phones every year,” Kim said explaining why LG, which is comparatively a new market entrant, is introducing trendy music mobile phones.
With an eye on the burgeoning youth market, LG has launched three music mobile phone models — T5100, C3400 and G1800. “These are bound to be a style statement among youngsters,” Kim said, adding that youth drive the mobile phone revolution.
Today, mobile phone makers have successfully combined technology and lifestyle needs in one tiny gadget. “In mobile technologies, music is an area that is developing very quickly, and very successfully, and LG has tried to incorporate them in the new models,” Kim said.
With its new local partners, LG hopes to increase its sales from 2 million units last year to 3.5 or 4 million units of new handsets this year. “We’re targeting sales of $300 million in new handsets in the Middle East & Africa region this year,” Kim said, adding that LG’s A7150 handset was named most fashionable mobile phone at the Asian Mobile News Awards 2005.
Bilal Ali, LG’s GSM software engineer, who gave a presentation on the new models, described the T5100 music phone as a “perfect MP3” camera phone with 1.3 mega pixel resolution, highest level of clarity and vividness to both still and moving picture images. It has video on demand (VOD) service support and video MMS, which give the phone the multimedia facility and 180 degree swiveling LCD window.
The C3400 is specifically targeted at the youth. “It’s competitively priced and slim, and with its compact design it will find an enthusiastic following,” he said. Additionally, the model complements the GSM range, which appeals to the higher-end market. The G1800 has MP3 player with its ultra slim and smart design.