Mumbai, July 6: The Denmark-based Jabra has introduced a range of bluetooth headsets in India priced between Rs 2800 and Rs 7500.
The bluetooth wireless technology connects speakerphones or headsets to mobile phones, giving the user a hands-free experience. If the handset is not bluetooth-enabled, it will have to be connected to an adaptor to avail of this technology.
According to Henry Tai, vice-president of sales and marketing, Asia Pacific, GN Mobile, Jabra chose India because of its strong GDP growth. The country is also the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. Mobile penetration in India, which is low at present compared with China, is expected to leap over the next few years.
The Jabra brand was established in 1993 in California by Jabra Corporation. In 2000, Jabra Corporation became a wholly-owned subsidiary of GN Netcom. Jabra is now under GN Mobile, the mobile division of GN Store Nord based at Copenhagen in Denmark. Jabra makes hands-free products for mobile communications.
GN Mobile is the largest producer of bluetooth headsets for mobile phones. Studies estimated that the company had around 35 per cent of the total global market share in bluetooth headsets in 2004. The Asia Pacific region has registered a strong growth in the past six months and India is expected to emerge as an important market.
The company estimates the size of the global bluetooth headset market to be 30 million units in 2005, which is around twice as that in 2004. This could further jump to 147 million units by 2009.
Faxtel Systems (India) Pvt Ltd will be the distributor of Jabra. Faxtel has in turn appointed three distributors to concentrate on metros.
Tai said Jabra will gain a strong foothold in India by focussing on innovation, customer service and price competitiveness.