(keitai-l) Re: Japanese Toy Phones

From: Gustaf Rosell <gustaf_at_xpedio.com>
Date: 08/09/01
Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20010809093618.02716de0@dogfood.xpedio.com>
At 05:00 2001-08-09, Chan-san wrote:
>Panasonic's GD90 dual band GSM phone launched last year was extremely
>popular in Hong Kong and reportedly made Panasonic the second best
>seller brand after Nokia in the city. NEC's DB2000 (developed in Europe)
>was pretty popular last year as was the Kyocera Skywalker - both GSM.

It's a bit funny that Motorola is also doing fair, partly because of the 
foldable models, typically used with straps by people pretending they 
already have i-mode...

But Nokia is extremely dominant, with a market share close to 45% in HK.

[...]

>Despite throwing heavy handset subsidies and having the city's first
>packet-based mobile network, Hutchison's CDMA network remains a low-end
>network, attracting customers mostly cut-throat pricing. Yet it still
>has less than a quarter of the number of customers on Hutchison's GSM
>network. CDMA phones, mostly from the Korean vendors and some from
>Motorola, are quite advanced, but they don't sell well because of the
>general aversion to the network and the fact that they don't have a SIM
>card (an important consideration because HK has mobile number portability).

It's a pity, since the network is working quite well, and they have some 
quite advanced services compared with the Wireless Ditch here in Europe.

See for instance:

http://www.orangehk.com/eng/whatweoffer/palm_promo.html

>Like most Asian markets, upgrade cycles are quite short, usually around
>a year, although that seems to be getting longer because phones have
>gotten so small that people see now reason to upgrade to a new model.
>
>Color and good sound and other add-ons like J-Phone's camera are not
>here yet.

Except for then Orange/Hutch, which have a version of the Sanyo phone also 
sold by SprintPCS in the US.

It is working OK. It has similar drawbacks like in the US with a really bad 
OpenWave browser and absolutely no services that are adapted to its 
capabilities. It is also very high priced (something like 5.000 HKD, appr 
$650), which is not really according to the image of the network, as 
explained by Tony previously.

See

http://www.orangehk.com/eng/whatweoffer/handset_index.html

Then, since the page is dynamically generated you have to choose "CDMA" and 
then "Sanyo".


/gustaf



>Benjamin Kowarsch wrote:
> >
> > >I really wish we had some decent Japanese phones over here. After
> > >a trip to Hong Kong and seeing all these tiny clamshell phones worn
> > >around the neck like pendants, I'm sure they would sell very well indeed.
> >
> > What you will have seen in Hong Kong would have been GSM phones - not
> > Japanese phones as they don't work in Hong Kong.
> >
> > Having said that, there are a very few Japanese GSM phones for export, but
> > not particularly successful, and there is one multi-standard Japanese CDMA
> > phone (from Sanyo) that also works with Hong Kong's CDMA and is therefore
> > available there. Still, the phones you will have seen in Hong Kong would
> > have been GSM phones, mostly of European make.
> >
> > rgds
> > benjamin
> >
> > [ Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
>
>-- Binary/unsupported file stripped by Listar --
>-- Type: text/x-vcard
>-- File: tonyc.vcf
>-- Desc: Card for Tony Chan
>
>
>
>[ Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://xped.io | gustaf_at_xpedio.ru | t +46 8 674 50 47 | m +46 70 916 4747


[ Need archives? How to unsubscribe? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Aug 9 10:41:56 2001