Aircel INQ tie-up to offer ‘dynamic social’ handsets
17 Mar 2010
Aircel on Tuesday tied up with British phone manufacturer INQ, which officially announced its arrival in India. INQ is known for its Facebook phone and according to analysts, given Facebook's growing popularity as the most preferred social networking website in the country it was in order that INQ would set up shop in India sooner rather than later.
INQ offers first-of-its-kind 'dynamic social' handsets that allow users to stay connected on popular social networking sites. Users can currently buy its INQ Mini 3G and Chat 3G handsets. The company claims that its offerings have also been customised for India with a Cricinfo widget and integration of Orkut which is another popular social networking site.
The two dynamic social handsets, INQ CHAT 3G and INQ MINI 3G, which will be sold across 55 cities from Aircel retail outlets will retail at Rs7,599 and Rs5,399, respectively.
Besides Cricinfo, INQ CHAT 3G offers widgets such as Google search, weather and Facebook. It provides for integration of Facebook friend list with phone contacts. Tweets and Facebook messages are featured in the phone's inbox along with scroll on the home screen. Users can also directly upload pictures to Facebook with the phone's camera and additionally they can use their Gmail as push e-mail on their INQ phone.
According to Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh, ''These multimedia phones are 3G-ready that will deliver superb value-added service (VAS) experience.'' Singh was speaking to journalists in New Delhi.
''We at Aircel have consciously focussed on VAS which is the future of telephony to be able to provide our consumers a rich and valuable experience and introduce to them a world of possibilities on their mobile. We are completely in sync with INQ's philosophy and devices which are built with the internet at the core for a new generation with a different attitude to communication. That means a never before, rich and authentic Facebook, Twitter and email experience along with Aircel innovations,'' Singh added.