Indian cellphone market promises huge growth
Bangalore: India is likely to emerge as one of the top markets in Asia for mobile phone companies over the next five years, Mr. Koji Ono, director, business development of Mitsubishi Electric Telecom has said. "India's cellular market is growing at a fast pace and if mobile phone companies upgrade their networks and the government gives a push to the sector, India will be a major market in Asia," he stated at a news conference.

Mr. Ono who was in the city to launch Mitsubishi’s mobile phone-cum-personal digital assistant noted that India's mobile phone market grew to 3.27 million subscribers in January, almost doubling over the previous one year. This is however, still a fraction of 70 million mobile users in China and about 60 million in Japan, he opined. Mr. Ono said mobile phone operators in India had a chance to emulate Japan's NTT DoCoMo by introducing products similar to its innovative "i-mode" Internet-linked service.

i-mode, the Internet-access mobile phone which allows Web-surfing on business card-sized screens has been a smashing success in Japan and boasts of four-million plus users since services started two years ago. As consumers increasingly opt to access data over voice from mobile phones, the market for such products will explode in India, Mr. Ono said.
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