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Cheap and complete
"Cheap sale! Cheap sale!" This sort of promotion is commonly heard in places such as leading mobile phone retail centers
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"Cheap sale! Cheap sale!" This sort of promotion is commonly heard in places such as leading mobile phone retail centers. Sales girls in these types of places offer mobile phones for a mere Rp 800,000, and what's more, these phones come with advanced features, including dual GSM, camera, MP3/MP4 player and Bluetooth with Wi-Fi support that allows Internet connection at hotspots, etc.
Some of the phones on sale are models that come equipped with a shake sensor, FM radio, push email, EDGE and QWERTY key pads with trackballs or track pads that facilitate Internet surfing and accessing social networking applications (Facebook, Twitter and other chat sites).
Today, smartphones have become highly popular thanks to the BlackBerry phenomenon that surfaced toward the end of 2008.
In recent years, Indonesia's mobile phone market has seen an increasing prevalence of local and Chinese mobile phone brands, rendering the market extremely competitive. According to GfK Indonesia's retail audit report for the first quarter of 2010, local/Chinese brands are eating into the share of the established big name brands and now have a 17.5 percent share of the total mobile phone industry in 28 Indonesian cities tracked by the company.
In the face of the competition, big brands have responded by holding back the launch of several series of smart phones, and then launching all these new variants all at one go to grab the attention of consumers. Undeniably, launching these branded QWERTY phones costing between IDR 1-1.5 Million at the same time proves to be a successful tactic to attract the attention of consumers who are keen to try out QWERTY phones but are skeptical of the quality of local/Chinese mobile phones.
Mobile phone buyers no doubt have to exercise caution in their decision-making, taking into consideration not just the quality and price but also thinking longer term, factoring in such things as after-sales service and the availability of spare parts and service centers, which is a commitment usually promised only by the bigger and more established brands.
Having a wide array of choices is not necessary a good thing. Only savvy consumers will know exactly how to find the perfect handset that really meets all their needs. Remember to do your research with due diligence before buying your next mobile phone. Good luck!
The writer is market analyst of GfK Retail and Technology Indonesia. GfK Indonesia is part of the GfK Group, the 4th biggest market research company in the world (source: Honomichl 2007)
