14 DAY TRIAL // On Wednesday, October, Samsung Mobile launched in Bangalore India its first 8 megapixel camera phone, the Samsung Innov8. At the same event, the company also announced plans to bring more high-end phones to India, and to introduce another nine mobile phone models this year.
Samsung's Mobile Country Head, Sunil Dutt, told reporters that, “While 68 per cent of mobile phone users go for basis models, the niche market for high-end phones is 7 to 8 per cent. We plan to have a significant presence in that category.” What this actually means is that the company will try to raise to 15 per cent market share in India in the next 8-10 months from the present 8.8 per cent.
Innov8 is a multimedia phone that combines several features like photo, music, video and GPS option, along with the 8 megapixel camera. It was officially released on July 24. Although this phone is a pretty sophisticated one, the demand in India was high for music phones and for touchscreen devices for business users alone, Sunil Dutt said.
In India, Innov8 can be bought for 45,999 Indian rupees (about 950 US dollars), while the Omnia model that was launched last week has a price of about 37,999 Indian rupees (approximately 800 US dollars).
The thing that is a bit weird is the fact that, even if Samsung invested over 24 million US dollars in its mobile manufacturing facility in Noida in the first phase, and another 20 million in the second phase, it imports feature-rich multimedia phones for the Indian market from the other Samsung manufacturing units in China, Korea and Brazil. As for the reason why it does that when its facility is able to produce over one million units a month – that’s anybody’s guess.