Popular smartphones in Nepali market belong to leading global brands like Apple, Samsung, LG and Nokia. [break]
The mobile phone market till last year was limited to low-end users, but in recent months, people have started buying smartphones without hesitation.
Although smartphone users began growing in 2007 and 2008 after the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and release of Android operating system by Google, smartphones became popular in Nepal only a year ago.
Teletalk, distributor of BlackBerry for Nepal market, has made six models of BlackBerry available in the market. Geeta Neupane of the company said the price of these models ranges from Rs 21,500 to Rs 53,950. “It is being used as palm computer rather than just a device for voice,” she said, adding that the response was very good in 2011.
Next month, Spice is also launching a new smartphone called Mi310, which comes equipped with Andriod software.
Motorola has recently launched 3G phone targeting young generation at Rs 22,900. The model named DEXY features resistance from water, dust and scratch.
Saurabh Rijal of Call Mobility - authorized dealer of Motorola for Nepal - said, “Young generation use social networking sites and with handsets like this, it’s really easy.”
LG’s smartphones come in the range of Rs 33,000. Ramesh Shrestha of the company said the craze among youngsters for low-priced smartphones is overwhelming.
Samsung is the another brand offering a wide range of smartphones. CEO of IMS, authorized dealer of Samsung for Nepal, Bishal Acharya said smartphones starting from Rs 12,900 are available in the market.
Apart from low-priced smartphones, high-end phones like iPhone4S priced Rs 72,000 are also available in Nepali market.
Smartphones are different from other high-end phoned as they are built on mobile computing platform with more advanced computing ability making the connectivity better and browsing faster. The phone features high-resolution camera, touchscreen, web browsers offering standard display.
According to the dealers, users prefer smartphones because of high speed data access via WiFi and mobile broadband.
Smartphones are different also because of the operating systems (OS) they use. Google’s Android, Apple’s iOS and RIM’s BlackBerry OS are some of the popular OS used in the popular handsets.
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