The Finland-based world market leader, Nokia expects strong sales growth up to nine million new handsets to be sold in the Thai market in the year 2007, driven by high growth of first-time users upcountry and a new wave of tariff promotions that encourage customers to have two SIM cards to benefit from a range of cheap rates, reported by The Bangkok Post on August 20, 2007.
Una Tan, the marketing manager of Nokia Thailand, said the company expected strong sales growth in line with industry growth in the year 2007 as Nokia earlier record high sales growth of 20% for handsets and market share in Thailand in the first half of the year. Nokia recently introduced its latest Prism fashion phones. The bar-type handsets have a two-mega pixel camera and can record videos and play music for 8.5 hours.
Ms Tan said the company had high expectations for the two Prism models due to their design and performance. Also, the fashion phone was an important segment of the replacement market in Thailand. “Given how fashion-conscious Thai mobile users are, and the government’s policy of promoting Bangkok as a fashion hub in the region, the segment has promising growth here,” she said.
However, the local mobile-phone market already registered more than 7.1 million new customers in the first half of the year 2007. AIS had 3.1 million new customers, followed by second-ranked DTAC with 2.5 million and third-ranked True Move with 1.5 million.
