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Our Bureau

Coimbatore , Feb. 21

WIDEX India Private Ltd has introduced in India a `user-friendly' digital hearing aid having certain features to meet the needs of people with hearing loss that are not available in the relatively cheaper versions.

The company, which imports hearing aids from its partner Widex A/S of Denmark, expects the market for hearing aids, estimated to be around Rs 30 crore, to grow at an annual rate of 10 per cent in the country.

Speaking to presspersons here in connection with the launch of `world's smallest hearing aid' named Senso Vita, Mr T.S. Anand, Managing Director, Widex India Pvt Ltd, Chandigarh, said the company from Denmark launched two years back `Senso Diva' that was the top of the line hearing aid which was `adaptive, intelligent, which adjusts to the environment of the sound.' There were intelligent solutions under which speech was prioritised and noise was reduced. This top end model costs around Rs 75,000.

The entry-level digital product from the company priced in the Rs 15,000-Rs 30,000 range was the largest selling digital hearing aid in the country. But it did not have certain features that users expect in terms of noise reduction. Now, Widex has come out with a middle level product styled `Senso Vita' that was user-friendly, less expensive than the top end model but it had many of the advanced features that led to improvement in speech, helped in reduction in noise and could be customised and it provided value for money. It was priced in the Rs 52,000-Rs 65,000 range. It had already been introduced in the North and West and was received well in the markets. It came in six variants that met the needs of patients with every type of hearing loss — from mild and moderate hearing loss to profound hearing loss. He said his company would be distributing hearing aids worth Rs 35 lakh to four premier institutions working with the hearing impaired in Hyderabad, Mysore, Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai for doing a study on children using digital hearing aids compared with those using the conventional hearing aids. This would help create awareness about the benefit of using digital hearing aids.

He said the joint venture was launched with a paid up capital of about Rs 1.75 crore with Widex A/S of Denmark holding a 60 per cent stake.

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