The Hindu Business Line : i-mode coming to India

PARTNERS FOR I-MODE: Mr Asim Ghosh, MD, Hutchison Essar, and Mr Takeshi Natsuno, Senior V-P & MD , Multimedia Services, NTT DoCoMo Inc, at a press conference in the Capital on Friday. - Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Dec. 15

India's third largest mobile services provider Hutchison Essar on Friday entered into a strategic alliance with Japan-based NTT DoCoMo to bring the popular i-mode services to India. The agreement will enable Hutch to provide enhanced mobile Internet services to its customers.

DoCoMo will license its patent technology i-mode to Hutch for offering mobile Internet for an exclusive time period, the Hutchison Essar Managing Director, Mr Asim Ghosh, said.

The services will be launched next year. However, to access the new service, users will have to buy i-mode-enabled handsets as the existing phones in India do not have i-mode compatibility. While Mr Ghosh did not give details of the handset price or the tariff at which the service would be available in India, NTT DoCoMo said the cheapest i-mode handset is available in Japan for about $100. Mr Taksehi Natsuno, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director, Multimedia Services NTT DoCoMo, said on an average, an i-mode subscriber in Japan pays about $25 per month to avail the service.

Handset pricing

"The new handsets will be priced competitively according to the Indian market," Mr Ghosh said. The company would initially import i-mode-enabled handsets to the country, but is also open to talks with local handset manufacturers. i-mode has about 53 million subscribers in 16 countries.

Hutch also has a tie-up with Blackberry and Microsoft for bringing Internet services on mobile. However, Mr Ghosh said the agreement with i-mode was expected to revolutionise the way consumers use mobile Internet.

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