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Indian mobile users beam mixed signals

By Anand Parthasarathy

KOCHI JULY 7 . India's — mostly private sector — cellular phone providers are a confused lot this week: the results of two surveys just released by market researcher, IDC (India), show the `desi' mobile phone user community, over seven million of them, beeping confusing signals about the way it goes about communicating on the move. When it comes to junking existing cellular phones for `cooler' and inevitably pricier models, Bangalore is the leader.

They change their mobiles after an average nine months in India's Silicon Valley. In Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, they hang on to their sets for at least 17 months. But, in Chennai, `old is gold' for at least two years. Chennai is number one in India when it comes to sending all those SMS (short messaging service) messages, 8 out of 10 mobile phone users being regulars at using the service.

The survey unearths an interesting fact. Women send more SMS messages than men — 4.2 messages daily to be exact. The financial capital would be expected to appreciate the economics of SMS versus voice calls.

But, no. Mumbai has the lowest usage among the major metros, and only 6 of 10 cell phone owners routinely use SMS. Only slightly behind Chennai in the SMS stakes is the national capital.

Seventythree per cent of Delhiwallahs are into instant messaging. They are also champions when it comes to the average length of a mobile call duration — 2.4 minutes.

Bangaloreans believe in brevity. They conclude their calls in just one minute. In spite of wide publicity given to `bargains' in mobile phone models, the average price that an Indian pays is Rs.7,000.

In Delhi, they have more money to spend and have an average budget of Rs.8,300. This contrasts with the frugal ways ofKolkata — where they will be extremely reluctant to pay more than Rs.6,100 for their next cell phone.

Reluctant or not, many Indian users may willy-nilly have to trade their old mobiles for later models in the coming months. Many of the providers led by Escotel and Airtel have last week introduced new models of SIM cards with a 32 kilobit memory.

These allow users to store a vastly increased data base of numbers and also to access many new value-added features, including interactive web-based services.

However, the 32K SIM is compatible only with the higher of two operating frequencies in vogue — so models that are not "dual band'' will miss out on many of the new enhancements.

The entry of a new service provider, in many areas, including Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore (Hutchison) and Kerala (Airtel) also promises to sharpen the competition for grabbing new customers.

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