The rural market in India is growing rapidly in terms of adoption of multimedia and feature rich phones, feels Motorola.
Keeping this in view, the company is aiming to launch mobile devices with Wi-Fi and near field communication capabilities, touch-screen facility and location based services in the Indian market.
This is contrary to the company's earlier strategy of offering low-cost phones in the rural markets in the emerging countries.
"Our focus on rural market in India is not just about cheaper phones. We are seeing adoption of multimedia devices in rural pockets as well, which is growing quite quickly," said Malcolm Dawe, vice president and General Manager, Motorola Mobile Devices.
He said given the fact that the mobile penetration in India was just about 20 per cent, the company was expecting a tremendous opportunities in the country. "I think the opportunities we have in India is bigger than anywhere else," he added.
The company has identified 20 different business and market segments including TV, location-based service, music and NFC for its future growth. The categories have changed year on year owing to the change in the market demands.
Paul D Leeper, Director, Business & Market Development, Motorola said, "Two and half years back, we had identified about 12 business and market segments. The number is growing slowly and steadily, and has now reached 20. We are keeping a close eye on the market. As the market dynamics change, we will be working on it in terms of bringing in newer applications in our products."
Among the possible areas, that the company aims to focus include global positioning system-based applications. The company has already launched some handsets in the US which are capable of GPS, and looking at introducing the same in India as well.
"We see this opportunity in India as very real. The company has test-piloted NFC enabled mobile phones in Japan and some parts of Europe. As the market matures here, we will deliver devices with NFC capabilities in India," he added.
The handset maker, which is reportedly feeling a pinch on its margin due to focus on low cost phones, is working with developers communities globally on how to introduce newer applications which will help the company is competing with companies like Nokia and Samsung which are showing strong growth.
"One of the reasons why we are organising our developers' conference here is due to the explosion in software development. We are working with developers here by providing them access to seed funding and tapping the market opportunities here," said Christy Wyatt, vice president software Platforms & Ecosystem, Motorola.
Motorola has its largest R&D centre located in India, which caters to about 40 per cent of its software requirements.
