Siemens has revealed ambitious plans to capture a larger share of the global mobile phone handset market, which is dominated by rival Europeans Nokia and Ericsson and US vendor Motorola.

Speaking at Telecom 99, Volker Jung, member of the managing board at Siemens, said the German company wants to capture at least 10 per cent of the mobile market by 2001, equivalent to 35 million units, based on current forecasts.

Siemens' performance in the mobile handset market had until last year been dwindling in the face of stiff competition, especially from Nokia and Ericsson. The launch of its C25 and S25 handsets, with innovative features including ring tones remixed by DJs, has brought Siemens back into contention, according to Jung.

"We have achieved no less than a turnaround in our mobile phone business. In fiscal year 1998/99 we sold 12 million mobile phones - mainly the C25 and S25," he said.

But Siemens' sales remain only a small fraction of the estimated 250 million mobile handsets Nokia claims have been shipped by all vendors this year.

There are around 400 million mobile phone subscribers and the number is forecast to rise to 900 million by 2003, according to figures published this week by the International Telecommunication Union.

New mobile phone products expected from Siemens next year include next generation mobile phones equipped with wireless application technology (Wap) for mobile Internet services, and high speed general packet radio system (GPRS) technology.

Siemens is already working on third generation UMTS phones, expected to be available after 2001. The company is demonstrating prototypes of UMTS phones in the UK, including a disc-shaped mobile videophone.

"With the planned commercial market debut of UMTS in Europe and Asia in early 2001, our goal is to offer, in little over a year, attractive multimedia products which are appropriate for the market," said Jung.

"These devices will not only dominate UMTS air interfaces, they will also work in GSM and GPRS mode in order to provide customers with normal national availability as well as international roaming," he added.

See also:

Orange plans high-speed alternative to GPRS

Orange today dismissed hype surrounding next generation 'data only' wireless networks, as it launched its own alternative mobile data service that runs on top of its existing voice network.  29 Nov 1999

Siemens cuts costs with intranet auctioning

Siemens Business Services is holding internal intranet based auctions to cut costs.  21 Oct 1999

Telecom 99: Nokia and Palm Computing join the race for smartphone supremacy

Nokia and Palm Computing have joined forces to challenge Microsoft in the emerging Internet smartphone market.  14 Oct 1999

Telecom 99: Gates predicts explosion of wireless Internet

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates demonstrated a Windows based Internet mobile phone developed by Microsoft and predicted an explosion in demand for wireless Internet applications.  12 Oct 1999

Telecom 99: Siemens invests in US smart phone vendor

Siemens has invested in US mobile phone technology company Neopoint to help it develop advanced smart phones for the US market.  11 Oct 1999

Telecom 99: Internet problems will starve telcos of cash

Telecom operators must address some serious problems with the Internet or face dwindling revenue as high margin voice traffic is overshadowed by bargain bucket data traffic.  11 Oct 1999

Telecom 99: Consumer privacy under threat, warns Capellas

Tracking customer movements on the Internet is an essential requirement for any ebusiness, but opens up massive privacy risks for consumers, according to Compaq chief executive Michael Capellas.  11 Oct 1999

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