Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
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I’ve noticed there are some very experienced USA members here. I really need your help to figure out if there is a market for these dual sim phones in USA.
Old timers will know that GSM based dual sim phones (with two slots for two sim cards - effectively two-phones-in-one, with each sim card on simultaneous stand-by) are a dime-a-dozen throughout the world.
Except in USA of course. That’s mainly because effectively no dual sim phones were FCC certified for legal sale in USA (and because, unlike the rest of the world, about half the USA market is CDMA via Verizon and Sprint, etc).
That leaves mainly users of AT&T and T-Mobile and the various pre-paid sim card sellers as candidates for GSM dual sim phones in USA.
Although a long time coming, several models of properly certified FCC dual sim phones do now exist. I have been asked by the Asian manufacturer (a large and well known respected company) to assess their market potential (if any) in USA.
That’s quite a handful for me as I know little about the USA phone market other than a few basics.
I do know that everywhere in the world, people love free phones bundled into carrier plans. Carriers hate dual sim phones because they don’t want an opposition carrier in their phones. However, for dozens of reasons, many people must carry two phones which creates demand for dual sim phones.
Because the big carriers hate dual sim phones, I’m thinking of recommending setting up a network of small USA website phone sellers in conjunction with brick-and-mortar shop sellers like independent phone shops and pre-paid sim card sellers.
Am I on the right track here and are any readers of your good forum interested in being part of establishing dual sim phones in the USA market?
Remember, this is a first in the sense the FCC certification allows dual sim phones to enter the USA mainstream market for the first time.
An example of one model is this really good looking Qwerty Blackberry type housing (not a smart phone) which can be landed on USA shores for about $85 factory cost price suggesting a retail price of about $149:
Dual sim cards; dual stand-by; GSM/UMTS; Qwerty;
• Platform: QSC 6240
• Frequency: GSM850/900/1800/1900Mhz / MTS850/1900/2100Mhz
• Dimension: 112*57*12mm
• Display: 2.4inch, QVGA, 320*240,260K TFT
• T-Flash support (Up to 32GB)
• Battery capacity: 1200mAh
• Phonebook: 1000+SIM
• SMS:500+SIM
• Camera: 2.0M pixels rear +0.3M pixels front
• MP3 / MP4/ JAVA / MMS/ WAP / Bluetooth2.1 / FM radio
• WCDMA DL: 384Kbps, UL: 384Kbps
• Warranty: 12 months, with “instant swap” of new phone for faulty phone
(An FCC certified Android dual sim is in the works for later this year)
Any criticisms, pros and cons or suggestions would be much appreciated.
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One thing that I can think of is that to my knowledge no major manufacturer makes a dual SIM phone. By major I mean Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, HTC, Motorola, etc. make one. I've seen dual SIM phones for sale but never have seen a "name brand" dual SIM phone. Until major manufacturers make one it's never going to be big or mainstream. Even dual SIM phones don't allow you to use them like "line one or line two." The closest thing to two lines on a phone is the "Line two" application on the iPhone.