Wed May 21, 2008 1:15 pm
French luxury-goods company Christian Dior unveiled a line of mobile phones priced from $5,500 or $7,900 and up, driven by demand in new luxury markets such as China and Russia.
The cell phone offers all the regular features - a touch screen, a camera, ringtones - but with a new gimmick: a miniature phone barely bigger than a USB key. Dior said the mini "My Dior," as it is called, is handy for women who don't want to rummage through their bags to find their phones. Instead, the mini version of the phone clips to the outside of a bag for easier access and communicates with the main phone, so people can pick up or make calls with My Dior and use the main phone for more complicated functions.
"In the same way that we have developed our watch and jewelry lines, we want to increase sales with the phone," Dior CEO Sidney Toledano said.
Made by a small French manufacturer ModeLabs, Toledano said he expects to sell at least 10,000 of them a year at the beginning and hopes to reach annual sales of $315 million in the longer term. ModeLabs invested several million in research-and-development costs on the new phone, said the company's founder, Stephane Bohbot.
Last year, Dolce & Gabbana and its partner Motorola sold $315 million worth of the designer label's gold RAZR phone. When Italian fashion house Prada launched a phone with South Korea's LG, Prada tinkered with the touch screen and preloaded content in addition to working on the phone's basic design.
"What really convinced us was seeing the attention people in emerging markets pay to buying a phone, by selecting the color and design," said Toledano. In Europe and the U.S., in contrast, phones are seen as more disposable commodities, he said.
Dior's new phone is priced higher than rival fashion phones, closer to the price range of Nokia premium line Vertu, which also starts in the $7,900 range. Dolce & Gabbana, Prada and Giorgio Armani all have phones out that cost around $950.
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