Sales of mobile phone sets up in Kathmandu

With the expansion of the mobile phone services, cell phone dealers in Kathmandu are making hay these days.

Retailers said they were witnessing good number of customers after the resumption of services by the Nepal Telecom especially the pre-paid phones following over a 6-month suspension after February 1 this year. In the meantime, Spice Cell, a private sector company, has also started operation.

"Mobile sets sales rate increased remarkably since Nepal Telecom (NT) started registration of new prepaid mobile from October 5 this year," said Umesh Bhandari, proprietor of Carphone Warehouse at Pashupati Plaza.

According to retailers at Kathmandu’s main business hub New Road, Nokia sets top the sales charts while Samsung and Sony Ericssion follow.

Mobile sets with price ranging from Rs.4,000 to 44,000 are available in the market among which the best-selling sets are from 5,000 to 10,000 price range, according to Vipin Agrawal, manager of Digital Home Pvt Ltd at New Road.

Agrawal informed that mostly youths are his customers. “They prefer to buy mobile sets with a price range of Rs.10,000 with camera. Only few customers go for expensive sets having multiple functions”. His shop sells 10 to 15 sets daily.

Among customers, male customers are more as compared to that of females. Women customers are nearly half of the total of buyers of mobile sets.

The latest models of mobile sets from Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericssion companies with multiple functions like 1.3 mega pixel camera, video recorder up to 1 hour and a MP3 down loader, with email-internet facilities are available in the Kathmandu market. nepalnews.com nd/sg Nov 09 05