Nokia's latest model, the 6235 CDMA, is not only the second phone in the category with video-recording, but also the first sub-10k model to do so.
The Finnish company, a relatively late entrant barely a year old in the Indian CDMA segment, is planning to launch three more colour models before the year to take its line-up to nearly a dozen.
According to sources, the three models scheduled to hit the shelves this year and another one next year will be the ones with features not available in any other brand, including bluetooth and extendable memory.
"We are concentrating on the entire range starting from the basic colour-screen model," says a company executive, "all the way up to a premium model with all the typical features one normally associates only with GSM models till now."
The company has successfully thrashed out a unique, operator-independent model of selling its CDMA phones after it entered the market ten months ago. This has also given it a virtual walkover as far as the high-end segment of CDMA is concerned.
"They took a risk in not depending on operators to give them purchase guarantees, as is the practice in the CDMA market in India till now," points out an industry official, "and this has paid them dividends by allowing them to introduce as many new models as and when they want."
The result is that while traditional players like LG and Samsung take nearly a year from the drawing board to operator approval to actual shipping of models, Nokia has already launched eight models in the last one year - the highest in the country.
The sheer variety, coupled with its ability to go beyond the basic, bread-and-butter models that dominate other brands, has seen Nokia's market-share go up, a fact which is weighing heavily on the traditional heavy-weight,
© 2025