Ring of extravagance

Would you upgrade from a functional phone to a techie gizmo or a fancy designer set?

A little gold, or even platinum. Or a single solitaire near the bottom. It's a designer product, and it's a ring that you can answer: the ring of a Vertu mobile phone.

Aimed at the wealthy customer looking for "unabridged extravagance", the handset brand Vertu is on its way to India. It's part of a global phenomenon.

The world over, so believes Vertu, the high-income consumer is opting for luxury brands. There's no reason that mobile phones should be an exception. After all, watches were once a technology product, and have long since moved to the luxury market "" where what you wear says something about your personality.

Vertu has figures to support this vision. The global luxury goods market is projected to crash through the $100-billion mark by 2008, as pegged by industry analysts, and this is the action that Vertu wants a piece of.

"The Asia Pacific market, in particular, is likely to perform strongly, which will drive the market on further still," says Vertu's creative director and designer Frank Nuovo, pleased with the rise in fashion consciousness around the world.

In 2004, Europe and West Asia claimed about 50 per cent of Vertu's global sales, with the rest made up by Asia Pacific and the US. To be sure, Vertu is more than armed with designer handsets and limited editions for 2006.

To kick off the season, the company has launched Ascent Azure (packaged in colours of spring/summer), which comes with a case made from white ostrich leather. Completely hand crafted at Vertu's factory in the UK, the handsets will soon be available at premium sales points in India.

"We are looking at premium outlets in India," says Nuovo, "which will have the requisite backbone to support a product line like Vertu's designer collection."

Indian celebrities are expected to be early adopters of Vertu's Signature collection (all decked up with diamonds, solitaires and other glitter), which is to be seen with stars like Madonna and David Beckham.

What price tags will these phones sport?

It's quite a wide range, starting from approximately $5,800 and going up to touch $26,000 "" the on-road price of a sedan in New York.

Now that's rather a lot, though the world's luxury brands are convinced that wealthy Indians suffer no sticker shocks any more. By one recent count, the country has over 1.5 million households earning over Rs 45 lakh annually. And like their counterparts in other parts of the rich world, they do need to change their accoutrements every now and then.

"Hence the run for spring and summer collections and jewelled sets," says Nuovo.