Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has already experienced a surge in handset sales here since introducing handsets with the Sinhala language interfaces, the country's most widely spoken indigenous language.
"It has fairly low penetration and very fast growth. The market will grow at 25 to 30 percent," Prem Chand General Manager Emerging Asia Customer and Market operations Nokia Asia Pacific told reporters in Colombo.
Chand also says Sri Lanka is a more developed market in the region. "We will be nurturing, developing the local industry, providing education, providing training for the channels."
Nokia hopes to work with the distributors, retailers and service partners to provide education and training to the consumer sector on phone usage, which was called the customer's 'out-of-the-box experience'.
They also hope to provide a range of customized products such as the Sinhala phone which was released in September this year that has increased Nokia sales three fold.
Furthermore, Nokia hopes to develop an effective distribution system for the range of handsets for Sri Lankans living away from major towns and cities.
"When you look at the rural market, there is an opportunity there are consumers out there who require devices. But the devices are not available to them at those points. So having an effective and efficient distributing system is quite important to us."
Chand introduced three new releases that will be available in the local market through authorized Nokia dealers.
The Nokia 6300 and the 6290 phones with a myriad of features will be introduced as mid range phones and the Nokia 2626 will be introduced as an entry level during the first quarter of 2007, Chand said.
Meanwhile, the Sinhala feature that can be enabled as a phone language setting, will be available in the low end phones from next year onwards Chand said.
Prior to September this year Nokia had held around 70 percent of market share including the grey market.
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