Alcatel Takes On Market Majors With Cheapest Handset

Alcatel is set to go cheap and threatens to take down rivals like Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson in the process. The French telecom equipment makers mobile phones division will take on the three market leaders with the launch of the One Touch Easy the cheapest handset available in the country.

The stylish handset is expected to be priced around $170 (Rs 6,120, the free on board price) a piece to a cellular operator. Customs duties and sales taxes added, the price inflates to Rs 9,600 a handset lower than Motorolas d160, Nokias 1610 and Ericssons GA 628, all of which have been selling in the $190-200 range.

 

Alcatel Business Systems (India) Ltds country manager (mobile phones), South West Asia, Ashish Pandit, hopes to replicate the success that the One Touch Easy (note that this product does not have a number like other handsets) is enjoying in Europe where it is selling over 1,00,000 handsets a month.

Says Pandit: We hope to touch a market share of 10 per cent end of fiscal 1997. He clarifies that he is referring to running numbers terminology for monthly market share figure as opposed to a pie out of the total half-a-million cellular handset Indian market.

The supply deals with operators are being finalised now; but we would have sold 10,000-15,000 of the One Touch Easy by then (March 1998), predicts Pandit. Alcatel has already tied up with Bangalore-based JT Mobiles for supply of 3,000 cellphones, of which the French companys country manager claims that more than 1,000 have been sold in the first week after its launch.

Alcatels introduction of the low-priced handset available in seven colours ranging from drab grey to corn yellow marks yet another cellphone vendors recognition that the main (and, perhaps, the only) driver of sales in India is price.

Others like Motorola and Nokia have already realised the lower the price, the higher the offtake paradigm and shipped low-priced handsets or dropped prices of existing products.

Motorola introduced the d160 in May this year at about $190 fob price. Top executives of the US electronics-to-telecom major said the price was not really indicative of the cost of the handset since the sale to a Delhi operator was bundled with a radio equipment deal.

Tagged at a friendly Rs 9,600, the stylish One Touch Easy hopes to replicate the success it enjoys in Europe, proving once and for all that the only driver of sales in India is price.