There's no question about it, mobile phones have become a necessity for the majority of adults in Indonesia.
If we look around our surroundings, we'll notice that everybody carries a mobile phone in their pocket.
Nowadays, the competition is getting tougher for manufacturers and the market has become more segmented through special features/functions incorporated in this gadget.
Music fanatics probably prefer a music phone, while other people are more concerned about having a high resolution camera phone.
On the other hand, professionals or businesspeople with high mobility may need a smart phone to support their daily activities.
Each person has a different definition of smart phone. However, based on GfK's definition, smart phones need an open operating system (i.e. Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc.) and QWERTY keyboard (or touch screen) for input.
Based on these criteria, the number of smart phones available on the Indonesian market is fewer than 100 models.
Despite the small number of models, one thing that we need to highlight is the market growth of smart phones in Indonesia.
The smart phone segment since the beginning of 2007 has grown 200 percent, or more than tripled! This is indeed one of the highest growths in the Indonesian electronics market.
In terms of price, the average retail price of the smart phone is not decreasing.
At the beginning of 2007, based on GfK data, the average retail price of a smart phone was Rp 4.5 million. It has since increased about 8 percent to Rp 4.9 million.
This is an anomaly since on the electronics market average retail prices usually decrease.
The increase is driven by the continuous addition of features or facilities on this gadget, which ultimately causes the price of smart phones to increase more and more.
For the operating system, Symbian is used by most smart phone models.
Over 60 percent of smart phone models use Symbian. Its competitor, Windows Mobile, is only used by about 10 percent.
Symbian is the market leader in Indonesia since it is supported by most of the big mobile phone vendors and is high compatible with many third-party applications.
Some users also claim that Symbian is quicker in terms of running applications.
Besides push mail and organizer functions, the recent increasing popularity of Facebook is also one of the factors for the tremendous growth in demand for smart phones.
Although some regular mobile phones also have a push email feature and can access Facebook, using a smart phone make these activities more convenient because smart phones have a larger screen and either a QWERTY keyboard or a touch screen.
If we could choose, wouldn't it be easier to write long emails and messages using those input methods rather than ordinary numeric keypad? Right now, smart phones with a QWERTY keyboard dominate the market with over 50 percent of smart phone sales.
Touch screen smart phones are in second position with about 35 percent of the sales. The remaining the sales are occupied by smart phones that have both of the mentioned input methods.
For the camera feature, smart phones with a 3.2 mega pixel camera dominate the market, accounting for more than 50 percent of the sales in this particular segment.
Compared with regular mobile phones, a camera feature in smart phones doesn't seem to figure as an important feature by either users or vendors.
The highest camera resolution for a smart phone is 5 mega pixels. Meanwhile, the highest available camera resolution offered commercially by ordinary mobile phones has reached 8 mega pixels.
With the various choices of smart phones, we have to choose smartly. Choose a smart phone that meets your requirements, and hopefully your smart phone will give you a smart look too!
The writer is a market analyst at market research company GfK Indonesia.
