Lemon Mobiles, a comparatively new player in the Indian mobile market, has teamed up with a mobile based community in mig33. mig33 is a global mobile community that provides chat and social entertainment services to more than 40 million registered members worldwide, and Lemon Mobiles are a value for money brand, something that they like to call themselves, that have definitely been in the market for a bit but have not managed to flutter the feathers of the forerunners like Nokia. But will this tie-up help Lemon change that? More importantly, will this help mig33 create new waves in mobile social networking?
About 60% of the population in India is below the age of 30 years, and as a result social networking has really taken off in India. According to the chart below by Nielsen ratings, 64% of the mobile social network users are below the age of 34 years. You combine the facts and India just presents itself as a market waiting to be blown away by the mobile social networking wave. As a result, the mobile industry in India has been up at it since some time to infuse the two together to provide the ultimate social networking experience on the go for users. Apart from being able to use social networking websites, other activities like IMs through phones for example have never really taken off which is what Lemon and mig33 are aiming to change.
Qeep was the first company that infiltrated this mobile social networking market by providing features like private messaging, photo-blogging, and live multi-player gaming. Though Qeep definitely turned a few heads, it didn’t exactly sweep India off its feet. Then came RockeTalk who provided IM chat compatible with Yahoo, Google Talk, MSN, AIM and ICQ. RockeTalk one upped Qeep by tying up with LG, a partnership which ensured that LG handsets came pre-installed with RockeTalk. However, even that didn’t make much of an impact.
Now Lemon and mig33 plan to change this with this new collaboration. But how does this association have a better chance as compared to its predecessors? According to Mohit Gundecha, the Director of Business Development for mig33, “India has enormous growth potential and we’re excited to be working with our new partner Lemon Mobiles. This partnership will help us grow our mobile community in India, as we deliver our chat and social entertainment services to wide set of mobile devices.” Also, Rohit Arora, Head Product – Device & Services, Fasttrack Communications Pvt. Ltd., the company that owns and promotes the brand Lemon Mobiles, believes, ” As a leading mobile handset brand in India, Lemon Mobiles is committed to delivering the most relevant and popular applications, which are affordable, simple and easy to use. We believe in changing the mobile experience of our customers and hence to keep them socially connected we have collaborated with mig33 which has a long track record of success in mobile-first markets including India. We further hope this partnership will enliven our customer aspirations.”
Though Lemon Mobiles consider themselves a leading handset brand, they are still well behind in the race to prominent players like Nokia, Blackberry, and Samsung amongst others. So will mig33 help Lemon boost their sales, and vice versa? Or will it be another failed attempt? What do you think?
