The free content, which expires only when a user changes the handset, offers news, stocks, foreign-exchange rates and sport-score updates, as well as unlimited ringtones and movie schedules from Major Cineplex.

Catering to specific users, the Basic series provides a charged, ready-to-use i-mobile 100 Phone to Go at Bt1,490. The phone will appeal to first-timers looking for a no-frills handset. SIM also offers the usual MP3 player and camera phones with their series 3 and series 6 respectively.

For trend-setters, it has an eight-megapixel digital camera-phone with auto-focus. However, the best seller is the i-mobile 510, classed within the Multimedia Series 5, with sales set to reach 400,000 units by the end of this year.

SIM wants to usher consumers towards a more multimedia society. President Thananan Vilailuck believes the future consumer trend lies in better images, sound quality and increased phone memory. SIM will offer talking-dictionary software in its handsets next year.

SIM has increased its market share to 22 per cent in the face of intense competition, not least the unfinalised share swap between International Engineering and Bliss-Tel, which might see the companies' market share reach 45 per cent. The Bt45-billion mobile-phone market is set to grow by 5 per cent next year.

Thananan said the unprecedented growth in mobile-phone sales was partly the direct result of intense competition, particularly a price war, among competitors. SIM has three factories in Taiwan manufacturing its handsets. "They also make mobiles for big brands," said Thananan.

SIM is part of Samart Corp. Just before the September 19 coup, the parent company bought Portalnet - an affiliate of M-Link - for Bt768 million from Yaowapa Wongsawat, sister of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thananan said SIM would like foreign handset sales to grow by 50 per cent, making up 7-10 per cent of total turnover. The company will officially launch i-mobile in Vietnam with a local partner by the middle of next year.

Ki Nan Tsui, The Nation