MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS
SASIWIMON BOONRUANG
CHIANG MAI : HTC opened its first "concept" shop in Chiang Mai to serve users in the province. The shop, a co-venture by HTC, Zoom Technology and SIS Distribution, is exclusively for HTC products and service.
According to HTC Thailand managing director Nattawat Woranopakul, the purchasing power in Chiang Mai was no different to Bangkok, and the PDA phone market here was growing, and Zoom was the company that provided after-sales service for HTC.
Chavalit Prasitphon, Zoom Technology's MD, noted that most PDA phones are bought by universities, especially by students. "The users are mostly medical and engineering students, as they use the e-book application for reading textbooks and it's more convenient to use a PDA phone instead of reading a thick medical textbook," he said, noting that apart from students, PDA phone users were working people and executives.
Zoom is the largest PDA phone shop in the province, and Chavalit said the company's sales revenues were around six million baht, of which 80 per cent was generated by HTC products.
Nattawat stated that there would be around 15 HTC PDA phone models this year, and five of them would be 3G.
"If the operator provides 3G service, it will encourage sales of 3G handsets to increase by 20 per cent, because users perceive its benefit. Today people buy 3G phones for their design and image, even though they don't need to use 3G," he said.
The PDA phone market today was still a small part of the total mobile phone market, around 350,000 units a year, and HTC was No. 1, Nattawat said. However, he said the Windows Mobile market was estimated to increase by 60 per cent this year.
He added that the design of PDA phones would become more fashionable as more users made decisions using their emotions, and the software on PDA phones would become more user-friendly. Applications such as GPS, GoogleEarth, personal data management, phone books and name lists would be a factor to boost market growth. Currently the average price of a PDA phone was 20,000 baht, and HTC delivered some 30,000 units a month, if the price comes down to around 13,000 baht, sales would increase to 40,000 to 50,000 units a month. "We have to provide a wide range of products to serve every group of customers," he said.
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