Fancier business phones are on the way to market, but will any businesses fancy 3G?

He describes it as a classic business phone, somewhere between the 3G-enabled 6630 and the 9500.
Like earlier Communicators, it looks like a regular, if slightly oversized, mobile on the outside, but open it up and it’s a PDA cum mini-laptop, replete with a touch keyboard.
This phone and handheld combo has straightforward icons, an easy-to-navigate Qwerty keyboard, and a nice, large flat screen when opened up. Both screens are in color.
It has the handy business features of a hands-free speakerphone and conference calling and office applications, such as document, spreadsheet, and presentations. You can also use e-mail with attachments, SMS and MMS messaging options.
The Nokia 9300 can also be used to make presentations, in the same way that a laptop can, plus it has the organizer functions of calendar, contacts, and tasks with PC synchronization via Nokia PC Suite software.
It’s not 3G-enabled, but that shouldn’t worry users in Hungary, as it’s going to be quite a while before networks are working here – a topic I’ll come onto in a minute. It does, however, work on all continents, utilizing the fastest forms of second-generational connectivity: GPRS and EDGE.
It has an inbuilt 80 megabytes of memory, which can be upgraded if needed.
The 9300 doesn’t have an integrated camera, though one can be attached if you need one. Do that many professionals want to take snaps with their phone, anyway?
De Jong acknowledges that one Nokia model does not fit all, and the right phone is very much a personal thing. Nevertheless, he expects Nokia to set a new trend on the business market with this one.
It should be available in Q1 next year, and costs €700. That’s without subsidizing from service providers, which is yet to be worked out.
“We have big interest from the operators. It’s interesting for them, because it encourages subscribers to do much more than just phone,” says de Jong.
Analyzing the Hungarian market, de Jong says Q1 was slow, but things have accelerated since EU accession.
“It looked like consumers were postponing decisions,” he says.
Nokia might have lost a bit of market share globally, but it certainly hasn’t lost one iota in Hungary, he affirms.
“I’m full of confidence that for the rest of the year, we can even strengthen our position and increase our market share,” the Nokia managing director insists. “The gap will be bigger with the second player on the Hungarian market.”

Head to head

More evidence of Nokia’s strong foothold in Hungary, and another thing to keep an eye on, comes from Nokia’s Research Center in Budapest.
The center is currently adapting the peer-to-peer (P2P) schemes so loved by internet users, allowing them to share files. The research team is putting them on Nokia 6600 model mobiles.
This could make it possible for music, videos and games to be swapped between mobile phones using a mobile file-sharing network, in much the same way as occurs with the hugely popular music sites, such as Kazaa.
Meanwhile, Nokia rival Sony-Ericsson has been turning out ever more impressive mobiles.
Sony-Ericsson Hungary Kft recorded a 30% market share in Hungary out of the 450,000 mobile phones sold in Q2, according to the company. In 2003, Sony-Ericsson sold 350,000 phones, reaching a 15% market share, Sony-Ericsson Hungary Managing Director Tibor Wágner told the press in July.
Not to be outdone in the business segment, Sony-Ericsson offers its P910i, which could be just the thing for businesspeople unimpressed by Nokia’s new offering. This is a PDA with a built-in camera that enables the filming of video clips on top of simple snapshots.
The Qwerty keyboard is on the back of the flip, and you can also use the text recognition feature (available also in Hungarian) and on-screen handwriting, courtesy of the virtual keyboard.
Like the Nokia 9300, this phone uses a Symbian operating system. The P910i will be available in Hungary at the end of October.

The next generation

For 3G, Sony-Ericsson has just launched the Sony-Ericsson V800, which it claims to be the first truly global phone.
It can access 3G services all around the world, and has been designed especially for Vodafone’s 3G consumer services. It has a built-in camera that takes pictures of a whopping 1.3 megapixels. With its tri-band and GPRS capabilities, it can stay connected just about anywhere, says the company.
It will be sold in Europe (V800), and also in Japan (Vodafone 802SE).
Meanwhile, back on Magyar soil, ten potential investors have bought the tender documents related to Hungary’s 3G license offering.
The potential bidders include European, American and Asian companies, with service providers and hardware manufacturers among them, Sándor Debreczeni, a board member of the country’s phone regulator, said last week in an e-mailed statement to the press. No further details on the companies were provided.
There’s still a month to go before the application deadline, while the mobile operators are keeping entirely shtum on their feedback to the nitty-gritty of the tender.
What we know is that Hungary’s existing mobile operators bidding for 3G mobile licenses in Hungary will have to make 3G services available at least in the inner districts of the capital by January 2006 if their bids are successful, and to 30% of the population by the start of 2008.
Could there really be a new entrant on a market that even an optimist would have to describe as rather saturated?
Executives of the existing three operators have said it is unlikely that anyone would undertake the investment of not only building a network, but also marketing a new brand.
While the new entrant doesn’t have to build out as quickly as the incumbents, and will get some roaming possibilities, it would be quite something if a fourth player entered. What is more likely is that a virtual operator could, future regulation permitting, offer services entirely over the networks once they are built.
Any newcomer is faced with the following stats. According to the latest official figures for August from the National Telecommunications Authority (NHH), mobile subscriptions reached 8.317 million in that month, climbing by 58,000. Subscriptions were up by 10.7% in August year-on-year.
T-Mobile Hungary Rt tops the list with 47.74% of subscribers. Pannon GSM Rt has 33.36%, while Vodafone Hungary Rt now has 18.9%. A year earlier, Vodafone Hungary had just 15.56%, T-Mobile Hungary (then Westel) was virtually the same at 47.5%, and Pannon had 36.94%.
Out of a population of just over 10 million, it doesn’t look too attractive a proposition to get involved in a scrap with the country’s three powerful operators. But then again, how many of the so-called subscribers have several SIM cards?

Phone Notes is a regular BBJ column examining the latest trends in Hungary’s telecommunications industry. The author can be contacted at Robert.Smyth@bbj.hu.

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