Reference Auto

Now, Sistema Shyam TeleService Limited (SSTL) brand MTS is vying for a place in the burgeoning smartphones market in India with the launch of three handsets priced between Rs 4,999 and Rs 13,500.

SSTL, a joint venture between Shyam Group of India and Sistema of Russia, is banking on the net-savvy youth to drive sales of the three phones, namely Ivory, Buzz and Alive, which have eclectic social networking features and come with high-speed data services. Enabled with CDMA2000 technology platform, the three phones support high quality voice also.

Buzz is priced at Rs 4,999 and features social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It has a QWERTY keyboard and the memory is expandable up to 4GB.

Alive has a price tag of Rs 6,000 and an in-built Opera Mini Browser. Whereas, the Ivory costs Rs 13,500 and is rich in features, having access to 60 mobile TV channels along with Microsoft exchange push mail access to popular social networking sites, among others. Ivory will offer mobile TV experience with free subscription for two months. It has a 3.2” WQVGA full touch screen for enhanced mobile TV experience. Ivory is Wi-FI enabled with 2 MP camera and Bluetooth.

Buzz comes with free usage for both voice and data services worth Rs 1,795 with life-time validity, while Alive and Ivory also offer free usage of voice and data worth Rs 2,295 along with life-time validity.

“MTS smartphones are among the most competitive and fully loaded devices which will set a benchmark in the industry with the third generation capabilities,” said Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer, SSTL.

These lifestyle devices offer high-speed internet connectivity with speeds up to 3.1 Mbps. MTS has been coming up similar speeds on data cards also. As an inaugural offer, MTS will provide 20 GB free for first two months to every subscriber of these devices.

The Indian smartphones market is expected to touch nearly 12 million by 2010 and surpass 40 million by 2015-end and if SSTL can compete by offering high-quality, feature-rich handsets at affordable rates, it will make an impression in the price-sensitive Indian market.