let me quote my own paper for a talk at Chicago on April 3-4 and MIT on April 5-6:

“”Cell phones were introduced around a decade and half ago and they became mass consumption good in the last decade. Not only people developed a language of missed calls but also developed lot of other applications. Young innovator Prem Singh developed a remote switch by which farmers could switch on and off their pumpsets, power lines could be tripped or monitored for load, one could get a message whether the milk has boiled or not sitting in a separate room, lock car if stolen, amplify heart beat and communicate it to the doctor. It is a pity that not many of his ideas could go to the market and become a mass consumption product. But just the range of applications should indicate the way Indian and trained mind can create numerous possibilities. Many other innovators developed security system so that an image as well as the message would be sent to pre defined addresses in case an unauthorised person tries to tamper with the lock or open the door. Cell phones can also be used to intimate the water status in the field so that farmers can track the need for irrigation. All these innovations have been evolved by the people who have not even gone to the college much less get any technical training. Companies like Nokia never shared the technique of extracting emergency power in a battery which had run down and could not power the cell phone. The young boys in the villages figured out ways of getting that reserve energy from the battery to make sos call or sms. Anurag Rathod, a class nine student thought of converting the gait of a person into a mobile password system. The moment phone is used by an unauthorized person, it would stop working till the original user unlocks it. This is an original thought with an amazing potential. Every such idea deserves a fair trial and opportunity for value addition and benefit sharing”".
“Grassroots innovations for poverty alleviation: An entrepreneurial approach : anil gupta, iimahd
anilg@iimahd.ernet.in

would welcome comments from all those who wish to join hands with honey bee network

anil

India is a country of the big Income divide. About half the population is below poverty line, one forth middle class and one fourth extremely rich.

So the Indian society can digest every type of phone model.

1. The lower sections like a phone that can make calls and play music may be a FM radio too with a bluetooth. Thats about it. Most of them are illiterate and hardly know hot to do email or surf the internet. So a phone with basic features and SMALL PRICE will be in great demand. Consists of a huge part of the population.

2. The Extremely Rich section of the society not only wants powerful features but also want their phone to do the talking at parties. Its a Fashion Icon and Style statement. It gives them a feeling of pride. So apart from being a phone, IT SHOULD ALSO BE A FASHION ICON. And yes, it should be extremely expensive. I remember a guy spending Rs. 1,400,000 on a particular phone number, no wonder he can spend more on a perhaps diamond studded cell phone.

3. Now the Middle Class is left with mixed reactions. They can be choosy from the very expensive handsets to the very cheap handsets. This class includes people like me who actually put in a bit of research before they buy a new cell phone. They actually look out through the market to get proper value for money. Tastes may vary. Mainly consists of college going and working crowd.

So, taking the above into consideration, i feel that the Indian market is full with buyers. And as far as i go, i have always trusted Nokia. It only water’s down how the way you market your product.

Cool , I never knew that.

True, its all happening in India:
Mobile Payments, Flat data transfer rates, high end mobiles at affordable prices/installment options, SMS applications (http://www.mytoday.com) , best of VAS (http://www.onmobile.com) , lots and lots of mobile content, movie ticketing , money transfer etc…

I believe with my N95 and a GPRS connection I can find whatever info I need anytime. My dependency on my computer for info has reduced drastically.

To answer the mobile life question, I believe mobile is quickly becoming a lifestyle assistant. Check out my blog post on how mobile enables my lifestyle

http://sachendra.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/mobile-is-quickly-becoming-a-lifestyle-assistant/