India to see big boom in bluetooth

Bangalore, Aug 12: India, which is witnessing an unprecedented boom in mobile telephony, will see a spurt in the sales of bluetooth enabled headsets with demand reaching eight million by the year 2011 according to Dutch headset maker GN.

GN, the leading seller of headsets in the BPO segment in India under the brand Jabra, sees a big growth for its headsets in the mobile telephone sector as well as the enterprise segment. Sensing the big opportunity, the company has put in a full fledged sales office in India, after its successful foray into the headset market in the contact centre segment in the country since 2005.

Speaking to sources, company Regional Managing Director (India and Middle East) Vincent Pena said the company would bundle its headsets with some major mobile set manufacturers to cash in on the boom.

"We see a spurt in the sales of headsets in mobile segment and we want to take a prominent place after our success in the contact centre segment. We will also focus on the enterprise segment where the multi-use headsets will become a norm in India like it has already become in the US and Europe," he said.

Mr Pena said in the enterprise segment Jabra multimedia headsets can be used on a variety of instruments like mobile phones, lap tops, LAN and even music systems at home. "When you travel in your car you can hear the music using our ultra compact wireless headset or use it on your lap top, when you enter the office you will be hooked to the LAN and while walking it will be connected to your bleutooth handset," he said.

According to a market survey, the Indian bluetooth headset market was expected to grow at a CAGR of 74 per cent as against 48 per cent that of China.

To popularise their product GN would be taking out road shows and awareness programmes and the benefits of the new wireless technology.

"India is buying seven million mobile handsets now and we see a big scope for growth in hi-end handsets like bleutooth enabled cell phones which forms a small part of the demand now. This is where we can provide the state-of-the-art technology and we are confident of competing with major players in the arena who are producing both hand held instruments and the head sets," he said.

Mr Pena said the company's sales in contact centre business would grow better than the market growth of 25 per cent in the country but it was not focussing on the mobile segment. The IP telephony will be our key driver in the future as convergence will happen in the near future and this will be further drive the market," he said.

UNI