The local smart-phone market still has a lot of room for growth. About 20,000 units are currently being sold per month, while total mobile-phone sales are around 700,000 to 800,000 per month. But the market for traditional mobile phones is showing flat growth, and is likely to fall further. The 'BlackBerry' phenomenon Thailand has become a battlefield for giant smart-phone manufacturers offering more and more appealing devices, with touch-screen functions and higher performance. Research in Motion (RIM) has been launching its BlackBerry products on the Thai market continuously this year. Its main product families are now available in Thailand, including the BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Storm (RIM's first touch-screen Blackberry smart phone on the Thai market). RIM has been successful in winning a large market share by making its BlackBerry products the "talk of the town" in Thailand. This follows the company's global strategy of focusing on the consumer, rather than the corporate, market and launching new flagship products with consumer requirements in mind, according to RIM's Asia-Pacific vice president Gregory Wade. The key success factors of BlackBerry here have been the devices, platforms, applications and services; the booming popularity of social networking and service providers' plans and packages. BlackBerry is very strong among executives and RIM has been moving to attract the mass market. Although Blackberry phones have been available locally since 2005, this year was the first in which RIM entered the Thai market on its own account. In the past, BlackBerry devices were marketed by local partner Advanced Info Service (AIS). RIM jumped into the market with big events, including the launch of the BlackBerry Storm with AIS - the biggest local mobile-phone operator; the launch of the Blackberry Curve 8520 - a flagship product targeting the mass market; and recently the launch of the BlackBerry Curve 8520 white edition with DTAC. The Asia-Pacific region is a high-growth market for Blackberry, and Thailand is also expected to offer high growth for RIM products, Wade said. Acer joins phone market Taiwanese computer maker Acer has also tapped Thailand's smart-phone market with the launch of the Acer smart phone, aiming to be a top-five player within five years. The company's senior corporate vice-president Aymar de Lencquesaing said the time was right for Acer to jump into the market because of the rapid increase in mobile-data use. The move follows Acer's acquisition of Taiwanese smart-phone manufacturer E-Ten last year, a purchase that enabled Acer to shortcut its entry to a smart phone market that is expected to grow by 15 per cent annually over the next five years.
News source : - http://www.nationmultimedia.com/