ELECTRONICS
Mecca for Gadget Makers
Electronics makers are turning to Islam by developing
special devices for Muslims. The challenge in
this potentially lucrative market is to avoid
offending Muslim sensibilities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Jeremy Wagstaff/JAKARTA and SINGAPORE
Far Eastern Economic Review - Issue cover-dated August
05, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHEN SOUTH KOREAN appliances giant LG Electronics was
looking for a way to catch up with its
competitors selling gadgets to the Islamic world, it
turned to Mecca.
Seeking an edge over its rivals, LGE hit on packing
features into a cellphone to help Muslims fulfil
their daily prayer obligations. The most obvious way:
determining the direction of Ka'aba, the House
of Allah in Mecca. So LGE's G5300 cellphone, marketed
last September in the Middle East, features a
dangling compass which, after setting it to north and
inputting some local information, enables the
user to pinpoint the direction in which to pray. The
phone, says LGE's assistant public-relations
manager Karen Park, has been a hit and an upgraded
model went on sale last month.
LGE is not alone. Technology companies are waking up
to the global consumer potential of more than 1
billion Muslims. Dubai-based mobile-telecommunications
company Ilkone in April launched its Ilkone
i800, a $400 phone that recites the Islamic call to
prayer, provides prayer times for more than
5,000 cities and has a digital compass indicating the
direction of Mecca. Korea-based PenMan Corp.,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Hosan Corp., which makes
automatic doors and vacuum toilets for trains,
has found a niche selling a range of hand-held
electronic devices for Muslims. They include a $120
digital version of the Koran in Arabic and English
with full recordings of the Holy Book and
earphones and a digital compass indicating the
direction of Mecca, complete with alarms for prayer
times in 250 cities.
While the Middle East is a promising market, sizeable
Islamic populations in Asia are also
potentially lucrative. LGE's upgraded model, the
F7100, will go on sale in Indonesia--which has the
world's largest Muslim population--and Malaysia later
this year. Ilkone recently set up a Singapore
subsidiary to market its i800 across Southeast Asia.
PenMan already has offices in Singapore and
distributors around the region.
On-line retail outlets are also sprouting up.
Malaysia-based TravellingMuslim.com, for example,
offers a Prayer Watch, which gives prayer times, a
Qiblat Direction Finder that shows the direction
to Mecca, and an Electronic Tasbih, which counts
prayer recitations.
It's too early to say whether this first wave of
Islamic-oriented products will spur more gadgets
aimed at Muslim consumers. LGE, for one, says it has
no current plans for more models. And some
companies privately acknowledge that such gadgets may
not appeal to all Muslims, as some prefer to
keep their religion in more traditional forms or don't
want to parade their beliefs in public.
Still, there's a sign that the gadgets are catching
on: Cheap Chinese-made copies of some of
PenMan's range of Islamic gadgets are already
appearing on the market, says overseas-marketing
manager Lee Rince.
But producing for the Muslim market presents pirate
manufacturers with some unique problems. Making
a gadget for Muslims is not just a question of ripping
off a design and adding an Arabic logo.
The biggest problem is ensuring you don't offend, says
Rince: "The Koran is a very sensitive issue."
The text and recitations must be checked for errors
and any translation that could be controversial
to any branch of Islam. Advertising also must be
modest and adapted to local tastes. And packaging
should be in keeping with the religious message of the
content.
To make sure it doesn't err, PenMan has sought seals
of approval from the highest bodies of Islamic
teaching, including the Al-Azhar Al-Sharif Islamic
Research Academy in Cairo. Copies of the
academy's letters approving the company's digital
Koran product range as "essentially proper,
acceptable and free from errors" are available to
customers on request.
Ilkone has gone a step further. After securing
approval from Al-Azhar, it has dispatched
representatives to ensure that its cellphone not only
complies with telecommunications standards in
Asia, but also meets the approval of local Islamic
authorities.
In Brunei, says Ilkone Asia's marketing director
Andrew Pang in Singapore, members of the clergy are
conducting random checks on the text of the Koran
contained in the company's cellphone. Malaysian
authorities, meanwhile, have asked for a printout of
the Koran used in the phone. "If something is
wrong with the product, we have to recall it and
destroy it," says Pang. "So we are very careful."
In fact, fears of offending Muslims may be overblown,
says Mahmoud Moursi, an Egyptian expert on
Islamic culture now lecturing at Central Michigan
University. On a recent visit to Egypt, he says,
he saw religion-oriented gadgets there that still
haven't appeared in the United States. He bought a
clock that wakes you up with recitations from the
Koran. "These are nice things that really
complement rather than contradict Islamic beliefs,"
Moursi says.
Ma'ruf Amin, the head of the fatwa committee in
Indonesia's main Islamic body, the Council of
Indonesian Ulama, says his organization takes a
positive view of technology, actively encouraging,
for example, the use of the Internet for Islamic
banking. Even Indonesian cleric Ja'far Umar Thalib,
leader of the now disbanded militia group Laskar
Jihad, whose members were accused of terrorizing
Christians in the Moluccas, says, "It's a good idea
that technology is used for the benefit of the
people."
In Indonesia, Muslims are already harnessing
technology to spread the word of God. The most
conservative Islamic party contesting this year's
parliamentary and presidential elections in
Indonesia, the Prosperous Justice Party, has
coordinated its activities via cellphone, mobilizing
supporters for rallies, alms-giving and even for
counting votes.
One of the most aggressive adopters of technology is
popular Muslim preacher Abdullah Gymnastiar,
whose followers can subscribe to services sending
prayers and Islamic aphorisms to friends and
family members via text message.
In fact, Gymnastiar plans to add cellphones with
Islamic features--similar to those of other
manufacturers--to his existing business empire, which
includes a television station, radio network,
newspaper, software company, Internet service provider
and hotel. "There is no contradiction between
Islam and technology," he says. "Islam teaches
humankind to be more useful in life, to help people
moving forward."
This is a reflection of how far attitudes have
changed. When Singaporean salesman Mohammed Ismail
started selling software versions of the Koran a few
years ago he encountered angry customers who
felt he was trying to make a profit from the Holy
Book. "'You should be giving it away for free',
people told me," he recalls. "It took time to explain
to them that I had research and development
costs to cover, and if I didn't cover them, I would go
out of business."
Those days are over: Now, Mohammed's helping Ilkone
sell Islamic-oriented cell phones. "No one's
suggesting we give these away," he says.
Rin Hindryati in Jakarta contributed to this story
=====
Mario Gagho
Political Science,
Agra University, India
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