The Hindu Business Line : Now, SMS in Hindi from your Nokia set

YOU can now use the popular short messaging services in Hindi. Eyeing the 45-crore Hindi-speaking population in India, Finnish telecom major Nokia on Tuesday rolled out content and short message service (SMS) in Hindi on its range of 24 mobile handsets. The company said the localisation initiative would soon be extended to other regional languages also.

"The Hindi belt comprising 10 States offers tremendous opportunity for growth and are critical markets for Nokia. There is also a great opportunity to create content services market in Hindi," said Mr Sanjay Behl, Marketing Head, Nokia Mobile Phones India.

The company also announced the launch of its Hindi content portal - Mera Nokia - from which users can download news, astrology, ringtones, jokes and wallpapers from next week.

The service will be available on Nokia's GSM as well as CDMA handsets. A Nokia user can send SMS in Hindi by activating the Hindi option in settings and all Nokia users can receive Hindi SMS without altering the settings.

The software for the initiative - Saral Mobile Sandesh - was developed at the Nokia centre in Denmark.

Nokia, which introduced the Hindi menu on its 3210 handset in 2000 and the first Hindi text input in 2002, will provide SMS and content in Tamil, Kannada, Marathi and Bangla also over the next few months, Mr Behl said.