any of the western markets and which was affecting all mobile producers. The future of the handset market look uncertain and a new approach to sales was needed.
             Siemens decided to take the initiative and adopt a new strategy. Traditionally, the company had only dealt with product positioning after the development phase was complete. However, in order to enhance their share within the handset market, Siemens outlined a specific marketing objective, which they would then fill by designing and producing a new product.
             A new brand, known as Xelibri, was to be introduced. Siemens would be following in the footsteps of Nokia; they would be marketing their handsets as fashion accessories and implementing a design-centred approach.
             This design-centred approach is based on the concept that many consumers buy handsets based on looks. Technically the phones needed to be reliable, but the design and look would be the main selling feature. The phones would be sold corresponding to the fashion industry's collection launch times. The strategy was that each Xelibri model would only to be sold for one year. This would give the company freedom from subsidies and thus create the opportunity to establish constant prices, rather than seeing prices fall every quarter.
             Siemens already catered for a broad target market with a wide range of needs (including light users and business users). With the introduction of the new brand, Siemens will be widening this portfolio to include the fashion conscious.
             The pressure is on for the Xelibri brand to be successful. This is due to the fact that competition among the top-tier vendors of mobile phones is now heating up. Siemens are facing increasing competition in the mobile phone market from other big players such as Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and the Korean firm LG. As a result Siemens is outsourcing a larger portion of its mobile phone business in an attempt to cut costs...