•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Move over, BlackBerry. Last week, it was all about Nexian fever in Jakarta.

At least 4,000 people at the Grand Indonesia shopping mall had caught it by Friday. Some lined up for as long as seven hours, arriving well before the mall had opened, to get their hands on the made-in-China smartphone.

Rahma, a housewife, was among them. She admitted to picking up her daughter early from school so she could be one of the first buyers of the new NX-G522, billed as the BlackBerry for those on a tighter budget.

“I’m only after the ‘smartphone’ feeling you get when owning a phone that resembles a BlackBerry,” Rahma said.

The Nexian’s price tag surely made some customers feel pretty clever. The device offers some standard smartphone capabilities, like Internet access, including Facebook, and a 1 gigabyte memory card for the price of just less than Rp 600,000 ($63), about a third of the price of the cheapest BlackBerry model.

Martono Kusuma, president director of PT Metrotech Jaya Komunika, which distributes the Nexian phones, said demand is high for a cheaper but “just-as-reliable” BlackBerry-esque phone.

“I don’t want to mention numbers that I’m not certain of, but there are many more Nexian users in Indonesia compared to BlackBerry users,” Martono said. “Indonesians look for a cheaper version of everything and we’d like to accommodate that.”

The country’s second-largest telecom firm, PT Indosat, said it has 300,000 Nexian subscribers, compared to 200,000 BlackBerry subscribers. Martono said Nexian has an edge over the BlackBerry in areas other than price. “Our brand has its very own service center, unlike BlackBerry phones, for which operators have to provide service for the phones,” he said.

Teguh Prasetya, general manager of brand marketing for Indosat, said the smartphone phenomenon was now within reach of all Indonesians.

“With the [Nexian] Chinese-made smartphones, Indonesians from the lower- to middle-class economic sector can enjoy Internet and Facebook features, though not as advanced, because BlackBerry has its very own integrated messenger service,” he said.

Teguh said he welcomed the BlackBerry “copycats” because it showed that BlackBerry has become the standard by which other brands are measured against.

“Many people I know buy Nexian phones not for Internet service or the other features, but simply because they resemble the look of BlackBerry phones,” he said.

Jon, a maintenance worker, said his sleek new Nexian was certainly worth the six-hour wait. “It’s brand new, and there’s a certain feeling you get when one has something that not a lot of people have,” he said.

“The quality might not be as good and maybe it’ll only last a year, but it’s worth paying that much for a year’s access to Facebook and [Yahoo and Windows] messenger services,” he added.

There’s a devil’s advocate in every crowd, though, and Friday’s was no exception.

Maswidyantoro, who stood watching the long line at Grand Indonesia, said those lined up were courting disappointment.

“Many buy Nexian phones due to their physical likeness to BlackBerry phones,” he said.

“But once they realize that the features don’t live up to BlackBerry standards, this will result in a boomerang effect for Nexian. Its success will not be a long-term one, because customers will not buy it again.

“Especially for people who have used BlackBerrys and know the differences between the two phones. Most Nexian buyers have never previously used other smartphones before. This is the risk of being the imitator.”