‘Lankan mobile market sees upsurge’

Jayasri ayakody reporting from Dhaka

The Sri Lankan mobile market has witnessed an upsurge since winning the war against terrorism and Nokia’s growth for 2011 is 20%, said Nokia EA Limited Sales and Business Development Manager Sri Lanka, Shiblee Shakik Ahmed, speaking to Daily News Business at the Nokia South Asia launch of the Asha range of feature phones at the Hotel Westin, on Saturday.

He said Nokia is still regarded as the No.1 feature phone in Sri Lanka but 95% of the population still uses basic phones.” “Nokia’s growth of 20% in 2011 was generated mainly from the selling of feature phones,” he said.

Ahmed said, “There is about 80% subscription penetration according to the amount of SIM cards sold, but as many of the mobile phone users are using multiple SIMs the actual penetration is at 50-55% which amount to 10-11 million phone users. That is our target market.”