INTERVIEW-Ericsson predicts big Bluetooth sales
By Paul de Bendern
LUND, Sweden, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Swedish telecoms group Ericsson , soon to launch the world's first cable-free headset using Bluetooth wireless technology, said on Tuesday total Bluetooth unit sales could exceed 45 million next year.
Anders Edlund, marketing director of Ericsson's Bluetooth division, told Reuters forecasts from consultants Frost & Sullivan that some 10 million Bluetooth devices would be sold in 2000 were ``probably correct,' but said estimates of 45 million units sold in 2001 were conservative.
Edlund said the first Bluetooth headset for mobiles would be launched in limited volumes in mid-2000 and made widely available by the end of the year.
``It will be a big seller for Ericsson, but the real importance for Ericsson will be when the product is produced in big volumes,' Edlund said.
Bluetooth devices will be compatible with its own phones and also communicate seamlessly with equipment from such makers as Ericsson's arch-rivals Nokia of Finland and Motorola (NYSE:MOT - news) of the United States.
Bluetooth, formed in 1998 by several leading telecoms and electronic groups including Ericsson, Nokia and Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - news), is a high capacity short-wave radio link that enables electronic devices such as cellphones and computers to hook up remotely.
Bluetooth headsets -- to be demonstrated at the CeBit technology fair in Hanover this week -- will have their initial market launch in the Nordic countries.
Edlund said Ericsson, which devised Bluetooth radio technology, expects some 500 million to one billion devices utilising Bluetooth technology to be sold annually from 2005.
ERICSSON TO LAUNCH CLIP-ON MP3 PLAYER IN SUMMER
Ericsson will also soon start selling a tiny MP3-standard music player for cellphones in mid-2000 as it plays catch-up to Nokia and Motorola.
The new clip-on music player -- capable of playing near-Compact Disc quality music downloaded from the Internet -- contains a disc the size of a postage stamp which can play back up to 10 songs and runs off the cellphone's battery.
``The MP3 will be on the market this summer,' Mats Barvesten, director of global products at Ericsson's Consumer Products division, told Reuters. ``It's a completely new product so we're not yet sure how it will be received on the market.'
Ericsson -- which says its MP3 player is the first of its type and will also be demonstrated at CeBit -- sees the mobile phone accessories market as a fast-growing area with good revenue potential.
Chatboards -- small keyboards enabling the user to type text messages into mobile phones -- are another product helping the world's number three mobile phone producer recover from a poor 1999, in which it struggled to bring new products to the market quickly enough.
Ericsson had already produced one million chatboards and had delivered 700,000 of these to the shops, Barvesten said.
``Chatboards are turning out to be a big success, so we're going to produce more of them in different designs,' he said.
He said Ericsson was exploring the possibility of producing a clip-on digital camera for mobile phones, but it was too early to say when such a product might go on sale.
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