Asim Sukhera

'Here we are looking to double sales in 2001,' says Siemens Mobile Devices director Asim Sukhera. 'We do not anticipate a slowdown in this market for three to five years. There are markets like Saudi Arabia and Iran where mobile phone penetration is still only 10 to 15% and that gives us a lot of room for expansion'.

Siemens is also leading the field with its new SX45 combined pocket PC and mobile phone model which appeared for the first time at the Gitex computer show in Dubai this week.

'This is a convergence device offering Internet access, WAP and now GPRS access. We think executives across the region will take to the SX45 as an ideal combination of mobile phone and pocket PC'.

Mr Sukhera also explains the advantages of GPRS to the non-expert. 'This is the son-of-WAP offering far quicker downloading of data, with up to five screens in one minute. It is also always on, and you only actually pay for the time taken to download information.

'So it should be cheaper than WAP as well as quicker. The information is also far more easily read on an SX45 than one of the earlier WAP-enabled mobile phones which were too small for the reader to see properly. This is a really useful practical way to read news, access email and communicate'.

Meanwhile, Siemens was also demonstrating a fully operational prototype for a 36-gram wrist-mounted phone at Gitex that it is testing before putting into production. This extraordinary miniature phone is smaller and lighter than anything produced by any manufacturer in the world. When can we expect to see it in the shops?

'We are currently assessing the size of the market and what kind of niche this product would occupy,' says Mr Sukhera. 'It could be in the shops in a year, or it might take a bit longer'.

But AMEInfo tested the mobile and found it fully functional despite its incredibly small size. Indeed, there seems no doubt that Siemens is presently leading the market with its innovative products in the mobile phone field.

And for business people who just want a mobile with excellent reception and reliability, Siemens also scores No1 for reliability in independent tests on its main product range. There is even a gold-plated mobile phone for the status conscious.