Nokia top Net-phone brand in Asia

Nokia is the top choice for Asia's Net-enabled phone users, according to a recent survey

By Staff and wire reports

HONG KONG, China -- More than one-third of current mobile phone users in Asia who plan to buy a Net-enabled phone said they prefer Nokia to other brands.

Nokia won the hearts of 36 percent of mobile phone users in eight Asian countries in terms of purchase intent for brand name WAP phones, according to research firm Taylor Nelson Sofres.

Nokia beat second-place Motorola, which scored 16 percent, Panasonic posted 12 percent and Sony Corp 11 percent.

Marketing over technology

"In some respects marketing is more important than technology," said Wander Meijer, managing director of Taylor Nelson Sofres.

"Some brands are bigger than the others but it doesn't mean they have better technology."

Taylor Nelson Sofres surveyed 8,164 mobile phone users aged between 15 and 65 in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.

Among current WAP phone users, Nokia leads with a 15 percent market share among survey respondents. Panasonic was second with 13 percent, while Motorola had 10 percent, Samsung nine percent, LG Electronics seven percent, Siemens, NEC and Ericsson both at four percent.

Although Hong Kong has the highest mobile phone penetration rate at 83 percent, Japan leads in the area of using WAP phones to access the Internet at 62 percent, followed by Hong Kong with 25 percent and Korea at 17 percent.

Chi-Wing Chan, a director at the research house, said Japan's success in adopting WAP technology could be due to the fact that WAP users in Japan do not have to pay extra for browsing the Internet on mobile phones.

He said the mobile access tariff structure in Asia might have to undergo some changes if the mobile commerce industry wants to significantly increase the number of people using the technology.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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