Samsung India Electronics Private Ltd. is aiming to improve its market share in the CDMA handset space to over 30 per cent in 2010. The CDMA handset market is projected to be 16 million next year.
Samsung at present has a market share of around 25 per cent in the CDMA handset space, up from 6.5 per cent in 2008.
The company, it may be recalled, had entered the Indian CDMA (code division multiple access) handset market in 2003. The CDMA entry primarily began as an operator-tied opportunity for Samsung. The company has since moved into after-market space and is now expanding into the open market business.
Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, to announce the launch of Corby Speed, its maiden touch-screen mobile handset on the CDMA platform with high-speed mobile broadband capability, Hendrick Lee, Vice-President (Mobile Division), Samsung India Electronics, said the company was optimistic that a combination of growth drivers such as OMH (open market handset) technology and new launches would help it beef up its market share in the CDMA handset space.
The handset is priced at Rs. 10,400.
Corby Speed, according to Mr. Lee, will give data speed up to 2.4 Mbps for hi-speed Internet surfing and downloads on the phone. Aimed at open market space, Corby Speed, company officials said, would support full service across all CDMA operators’ OMH SIM cards such as Tata Indicom, Reliance Mobile, MTS and Virgin Mobile. This would provide a mobile phone user the leeway to pick any operator of his/her choice at any point in time. “This provides one the flexibility of a GSM-based (global system for mobile communication) handset,” a company official said
Corby Speed would be imported into India from Samsung’s facility in China. To a query, Mr. Lee said Samsung had currently no plans to make Corby Speed in India. Company officials said Corby Speed also supported various social networking sites by integrating user-generated content sites such as Flicker, Picasa, Facebook and MySpace.
Samsung also strengthened its product portfolio in the CDMA space by launching Mpower Muzik 219 (at a price of Rs. 3,599) and Duos 259 (Rs. 8,350).
With these launches, Samsung has in its CDMA portfolio nine handsets for the open market space in the price range of Rs. 3,199-12,500.
Company officials indicated that all CDMA handset launches in this space henceforth would be based on the standard OMH platform.
