Samart sets up Brain Source

The Nation (15 November 2007)

Samart i-Mobile has set up mobile-phone application company Brain Source to capture the market in Southeast Asia

The subsidiary is expected to generate Bt90 million in revenue next year.

Samart i-Mobile CEO Watchai Vilailuck said the company decided to set up Brain Source because of the growth of mobile content and application services. Started last year as a small research and development unit, Brain Source has developed applications to serve Samart's handset brand i-Mobile.

"We have to create differentiated and value-added features for i-Mobile with content and applications that will help us to boost the sales target," Watchai said.

Samart i-Mobile targets to sell three million i-Mobile handsets this year, of which one million will be in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Watchai said the company would focus on entering into new developing countries such as South Africa.

Next year it aims to sell five million handsets, with two million in international markets.

Its applications are divided into three groups: business, lifestyle and entertainment.

Subhasiddhi Rakkasikorn, general manager of Samart Multimedia, said Brain Source's applications would be bundled in every i-Mobile handset and some selected brand models including Sony, Ericsson and LG.

"Next year we will bundle our applications into 1.5 million i-Mobile handsets, 500,000 major-brand handsets and 60,000 smart phones. We are also ready to launch applications for international markets," Subhasiddhi said.