More India IP Communications Stories

Nokia has announced that after the successful completion of trials of its Life Tools services, it believes they will be highly beneficial to subscribers in India when they are launched there in the first half of 2009.

 

The services will be enabled in the Nokia (News - Alert) 2320 and Nokia 2323, which are shipping soon, as well as other devices to be announced later in the year.

 

After recently concluding trials of the service in the state of Maharastra, India, Nokia said very encouraging results and actual subscriber feedbacks suggest the service has a wide appeal and the capacity to connect subscribers at both emotional and functional levels.

 

Life Tools services will offer information to India's farmers and farming communities, demonstrating how mobile phones can do more than just play music and videos. Life Tools provides an easy interface to Reuters (News - Alert) Market Light, which delivers information on crop prices and such over an SMS network, as well as offers applications like exam revision guides and cricket scores, all on the most basic of handsets.

 

"The creation of Nokia Life Tools is from the ground up: it is built by a team that immersed itself in the rural conditions and did extensive research to understand how people led their lives, the kinds of services they were currently receiving, and what they wanted to see as changes or improvements," said D. Shivakumar, Vice President and General Manager of Nokia India.

 

Farmers who participated in the trail Life Tools service welcomed the fact that they could bypass agents to know the current market prices of crops. And now, with greater awareness on market conditions, they also were able to gain new confidence in their negotiations with agents.

 

Getting info directly to their phones via SMS also eliminated the need for farmers to make trips to the markets to find out prices. This has allowed them to save a lot of money and energy.

 

"I believe in working rigorously to enhance my livelihood and lifestyle and I expect that Nokia Life Tools services will help me in validating the desired information," said a farmer and trader from Tuljapur, Amravati.

 

Farmers can not only get info on crop prices but also info about the weather forecasts, disease awareness, and tips for a successful harvest. In addition, its possible for farmers to plan labor, sowing, harvesting and find out how to better sell, with more predictable results than ever before.

 

 

The pilot program of Nokia Life Tools in India was launched in December 2008, with services in Agriculture, Learn English, General Knowledge and Astrology. During the pilot period, buyers of the Nokia 2600 classic or the Nokia 1680 classic - which came enabled with the service - had the option to purchase subscriptions to the Nokia Life Tools services that were most relevant to them.

 

Jawahar Kanjilal, the Global Head of Emerging Markets Services of Nokia said that the reason for the huge success of the pilot program of the Life Tools is that it addressed the specific unmentioned needs of the poor and farming users to carry on with their daily life and honed in on consumers' specific pain points.

 

Nokia has said it will continuously work to improve the Life Tools service to make it extremely relevant and indispensable to the target users.