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Watchai Vilailuck, president of parent company Samart, said SIM could produce a mass volume of handsets at lower cost and was expected to sell a greater number of low- to middle-market handsets this year.

SIM has focused on selling its own in-house mobile phone brand: i-Mobile.

Meanwhile, soaring living costs have discouraged people from ditching their old mobile phones for new models. Earlier this month, wholesale handset distributor Wireless Device Supply reported that research house GFK had already lowered its forecast for mobile-phone sales this year from 9 million units to 8.7 million, due to soaring rice and oil prices.

In value, sales are expected to drop 8.57 per cent to Bt32 billion, from Bt35 billion last year, as most sales will be low-cost units in line with the decelerating economy.

SIM president Thananan Vilailuck said SIM would launch seven or eight medium- and low-priced mobile-phone models in the second half of the year.

It may also increase its proportion of handset sales between Thailand and regional markets in order to deal with possible slow sales in Thailand.

Yesterday, the company launched two new mobile-phone models to tap the mass market: the i-Mobile Hitz 101, priced at Bt1,100, and the Hitz 201, priced at Bt2,190.

The company will spend Bt100 million on marketing campaigns for the two models and has targeted sales of 500,000 units each for this year.