By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines — The entry-level market currently makes up for a large portion of the mobile phone business in the Philippines. Phone brands must have a mass appeal to stay in the market that demands cheap phones that cost below P5,000 to P6,000.
Motorola, however, has found a small but growing niche in the mass market segment that looks for more sophistication in their somewhat dull basic phones. These types of users are starting to demand multimedia functionalities in their handsets.
(Photo shows from left to right the Moto A810, the black and white ZN200, the MOTOROKR EM60, and the Motorola W388).
“People, even in a tight budget, still want their phones to be as functional as the more expensive phones that they wish they had. This is the market that we’re trying to address,” Mari Litonjua, Motorola Philippines marketing director for sub-regions, said.
Speaking to local journalists during the launch of new handsets, Litonjua said consumers are bound to want phones that have multimedia functions, especially those that have radio and digital music playback capabilities, and if possible, basic photo functions.
“Not only do they want their phones to perform well but they also want these to look good as well,” Litonjua said.
The company presented five new phones, all of which are entry-level models for different segments. These will be launched in the third quarter of the year at a starting price of P3,000.
The latest entry-level music phone is the W388, which is an updated version of Motorola’s successful W300 series. The phone can accommodate microSD cards of up to 2 gigabytes in storage capacity. It also features an easy drag-and-drop feature allowing basic users to just copy music files into the phone from a computer. The W388 has an FM radio, speakerphone, and digital camera.
The Motozine ZN5 and the ZN200 are Motorola’s camera phones. The ZN200 is the basic unit in the lineup. It has a 2-megapixel digital camera with 8x digital zoom. It can capture video in MPEG-4 format. It comes with 30 megabytes of internal memory, but it can accommodate 2Gb microSD card.
The Motorolla ZN5 is the top model in the Motozine series. It has a 5-megapixel digital camera with additional lighting adjustment functions, as well as capture modes and photo editing effects. Kodak provided the Kodak Gallery software and image enhancement software engine for this phone.
The ZN5 also supports a microSD card up to 4 Gb. It also has wireless fidelity (WiFi) connectivity, allowing the phone to connect to the Internet and to the Kodak Gallery online service for quick uploading of photos.
One of the two entry-level phones for the higher market segment is the Moto A810, which is a small touch-sensitive PDA phone. This model has a 2-megapixel camera that can record photos and videos (in 3GPP and MPEG-4 formats). The phone supports EDGE cellular wireless technology for browsing the Internet. The touch-screen of this unit is also one of the smallest in the market at 2.2-inches.
Motorola finally introduced the Motorokr EM30, a basic ROKR phone. It is the second after the ROKR E8 to integrate the mode shift technology that turns the touch-sensitive alphanumeric keypad into controls for a handheld music player. It also supports microSD cards of up to 8 Gb.
The phones will be made available in the Philippines in the third quarter this year, Motorola Philippines said.
Watch my video interview with Alvin Soh, Motorola product marketing manager for mobile devices, as he introduces the latest lineup of Motorola phones.
