News & Analysis » Singapore

By Louis Lee

In order to fuel creativity, you have to think out of the box. This was exactly what S i2i, a leader in the ‘Switch Up’ to Mobile industry did when it chose the notorious Friday the 13th as its launch date for its first smart-feature mobile internet (MI) devices, “Racer” and “Latte” as a form of advertisement, which was shown widely on the home screen of said products.

The first smart-feature MI devices will be introduced regionally, and pre-loaded with its recently launched application store, “S Apps Planet”. The “Racer” and “Latte” models of MI devices were unveiled at the inauguration of the Global Innovation Centre on the same day, which will be a hub for S i2i’s innovation, product design and development talents. The designs of “Racer” and “Latte” are slim and elegantly designed, while it’s packed with features such as 3.5-inch HVGA touch screen and 2.0 megapixel cameras enhanced with face-tracking function. The “Racer” model enables internet connectivity through WIFI and EDGE technologies while the “Latte” model is enabled on EDGE and also allow for access to analogue TV.

Pricing For The Masses

Priced at less than $100 on a cash and carry basis without any lock in contracts, the “Racer” and “Latte” models will be in line with the group’s goal to cater “affordably priced smart phones” to the masses. This also serves to relinquish the commonly known high end price tag of smart phones. When asked if the low pricing of the MI devices poses a challenge to its operating margin of the group, Dr Bhupendra Jumar Modi, Chairman of S i2i mentioned that it certainly does pose a challenge to a certain extent on its margin, but it is within manageable range.

“One of the primary reasons why our smart phones are priced within such price range is because the average income of most people in Indonesia, one of our active markets, is about US$200-US$300 per month. It will technically be impossible for them to afford our smart phones if it’s priced like an iPhone or a Blackberry,” Dr Modi added.

As mentioned earlier, the “Latte” and “Racer” are both pre-loaded with applications (apps) from its app store, “S Apps Planet”. These include apps ranging from Facebook to flash games, which are commonly seen across smart phones like iPhone, Blackberry and HTC. Like a typical app store, the apps will also be categorised under “free” or “paid”.

Unique Payment For Apps

In its efforts to eliminate the need to use credit cards to pay for its apps, users can purchase the “paid” apps using the value stored in their pre-paid SIM card. This effectively eradicates the painstaking process of synchronising credit card merchants and high costs mechanisms to track and endorse its transactions.

The same theory applies for the charges of data when the user surfs the internet using the data enabled on the mobile device when WIFI is not available.

According to sources familiar with the case, talks are also in progress with local telco operator SingTel, but the outcome of said talks are still not known yet and might need more time to unfold.

This could very well be the beginning of yet another revolution in the smart phone world. As consumers, all you need to do is smile along.