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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Biddle who wrote (32609)	2/18/2003 10:28:27 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 196995

Cell phone firms to cut handset prices by 20% SNIGDHA SENGUPTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2003 01:54:09 AM ] economictimes.indiatimes.com MUMBAI: Leading GSM handset vendors are gearing up for a price reduction of over 20 per cent on entry-level handsets next month. While Motorola and Sony-Ericsson are expected to reduce prices of their existing entry-level models — the T190 and T100 by 20% and 23% respectively — market leader Nokia is slated to phase out the 3310 and introduce the higher-end 3315 as an entry product. While Nokia India officials were not available for comment, the company’s leading distributor in the western region Phone Shop said that the 3315, which now costs Rs 5,750 and comes with an in-built FM radio, would become Nokia’s entry product around March-end at around Rs 5,000. "The 3310, which is currently Nokia’s entry product, will be phased out by that time," said Atul Zaveri, director of Phone Shop. Nokia has already set the ball rolling with price cuts on select GPRS-enabled handsets, effective from this week. It has reduced the price of the 6610, which offers multimedia messaging capabilities, by 17% from Rs 23,600 earlier to Rs 19,600 now. On the higher end, the 7650, which comes integrated with a digital camera alongwith MMS, is now 5% cheaper at Rs 27,000 against Rs 28,500 earlier. Motorola’s entry product, the T190, is expected to be priced at Rs 4,000 in March against Rs 5,000 now. Sony-Ericsson’s T100 is expected to cost Rs 5,000 by the end of next month against Rs 6,500 now. While the price cuts planned in March are in anticipation of possible customs duty reductions in the union budget due on February 28, industry sources said that GSM vendors are also preparing for competition from CDMA phones, sales of which have already started picking up with the launch of Reliance Info’s WiLL services earlier this month. Hence even if there is no duty reduction, prices will still be cut. Authorised dealers in Mumbai have been told about the prospective price cuts by all major vendors, with the exception of Samsung. Until now, Samsung was the second largest vendor in the GSM market after Nokia. However, according to a city-based dealer, "With Samsung now pushing its CDMA handsets more aggressively, the number 2 slot is a contest between Sony-Ericsson and Motorola." The last major price cut announced by GSM vendors was in March ‘02, when prices were reduced by 8-10% across-the-board on the back of customs duty relief in the previous budget (the duty was reduced from 25% to 14%). This also helped narrow the gap between official and grey market prices to under 20% against 40-50% earlier. The grey market, however, continues to account for 70% of the overall 4.4m GSM handset market in the country.