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Cellular Phones

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PCQ Bureau
New Update
Year Winner
2000 Nokia
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Not much speculation about the most popular cellphone. Nokia

rules the market by a wide margin. This is the first time we’re featuring

cellphones in the User’s Choice. The cellular services market has been growing

at an almost steady pace since its inception. Meanwhile,

Cellphones

User's Choice Club  UPI
Nokia 100
Panasonic 11
Ericsson 10
Motorola 10
Sony 10

prices of handsets have been falling (with the recent cut in

sales taxes), new features being incorporated, and additional services provided

to the customers.

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Latest offerings from companies include T9 text input (for

faster SMS), voice dialing and voice menu, hands-free operation, etc. Not all

brands have done any aggressive ad campaigning recently. But still, they are

having good sales. This reflects that now we have a more informed user. As for

the service providers, although bundled package offerings have reduced, this has

not affected the cellphone handset market much. Some technologies like SMS have

already picked up, while others like WAP are following suit. In fact, as and

when a technology comes up, all the brands incorporate it.

The determining factor for the purchase of a cellphone is

quality. Our survey showed strong brand presence for Nokia. More than a third of

the sample size for both the corporate and household segments preferred it

because of its quality, service or support, and reliability. Respondents also

indicated that they would like to stick to the brand in future too. And even

people intending to buy either new handset or changing their handsets, show a

marked trend to go in for Nokia.

There seems to be a lot of competition among the other

players who entered the User’s Choice Club. Ericcson, Sony, and Motorola had

the same UPI score, and the runner up Panasonic was just a point ahead of them.

So it appears that they have a long way to go before they can break into Nokia’s

mindshare.

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