While Grameenphone received a lacklustre response to its Mozilla smartphones, Banglalink has brought handsets with same operating system.
Banglalink launched the sets on Wednesday with handset vendor Alcatel offering the price Tk3,299 each.
But Grameenphone apparently failed in its marketing campaign of handsets equipped with Firefox OS, said the market insiders. According to them, it was due to the price (Tk4,650) which is higher compared to the services offered.
Since the launch in late September, about 8,000 sets were sold though 23,000 sets were imported in a joint venture with handset vendor Symphony, said a senior official of Grameenphone.
“The handsets were designed according to the taste and demand of the youth. But the response was only 8,000,” Grameenphone CEO Vivek Sood told the Dhaka Tribune recently.
The 3G-enabled handsets have been marketed with Symphony brand and the price was set at about Tk4,650. A lot of money was spent for marketing purpose of the sets offering bundles of facility and service, officials said.
But many buyers were not happy with the price compared to the volume of service as they said the price was a major factor for poor response, but the services were not that much.
There was also a price difference between Bangladesh and other markets. While Mozilla launched handsets internationally at a price of $25 each (around Tk2,000) and about $33 in India, its Bangladesh price is $60.
Market sources said this price gap with other markets was also another reason for failure to draw expected customer response in Bangladesh.
The sets feature a 3.5-inch display, 1GHz processor and 1 megapixel camera.
