Tuesday, February 21, 2006

BARCELONA (Dow Jones) — The phenomenal growth of mobile phone subscriptions in countries like India and Sudan is putting pressure on infrastructure and handset providers to start tailoring some of their products to these emerging markets.

Of course, demand for mobile phones in India, China, Eastern Europe and Africa is not a new phenomenon.

But until recently, the likes of Motorola and Nokia were more focused on producing fancier phones in their battle for market share in Western Europe and North America.

The orders from emerging market operators were also too small to attract much attention.

But faced with market saturation in Western Europe, North America and Asia, handset manufacturers have recently turned to developing countries for growth. Industry analysts forecast that 80% of the next billion mobile phone customers will come from emerging markets.

Click here to read more.

Source: Dow Jones Newswire (link opens in a new window)