The ultimate wireless toy is on its way. From the French luxury house of Dior, it is a diamond- studded mobile handset to be unveiled this month worldwide. In India, the handset will go for Rs 12 lakh, a price tag that even the obscenely rich may find daunting.

To open the sale in India, 30 of these handsets are being shipped in by LVMH, the luxury giant that has quite a few top brands in its bag.

No one knows for sure if there is a market for such high-priced toys in India. If there is, it isn’t talked about, either by the sellers or the buyers, except in the champagne circuit.

But apparently, there is a market for B-class Dior handsets that are far cheaper, that is Rs 2.6 lakh apiece. In the five months since the launch of this phone, the market has seen exactly 250 customers.

Anything costlier is a bit iffy. For example, a Rs 18 lakh Tag Heuer mobile phone distributed by LVMH. Its remains a collector’s piece, except that no one in India had found the gall to buy it.

So the single piece that was brought into the country remains in the vaults of a watch seller in Connaught Place in the capital.

Aware that the Rs 2.6 lakh “medium- end” phones has a better market, LVMH plans to sell them at multi-brand shops. But the Rs 12 lakh phone will be sold strictly at the Dior boutiques.

Imported luxury products sell at prices far higher than in other countries – one reason why the Indian rich still dash off to Dubai and Singapore to buy the stuff. Keeping this in mind, LVMH sells handsets at the same price as in these two global shopping meccas.

“We are looking at creating a long- term market here,” said Manishi Sanwal, general manager, Moet Hennesey Louis Vuitton, in explanation of why the pricing is pan-Asian.

None of the phones of various brands under LVMH come off an assembly line. Each handset is handcrafted like fine jewellery in France, which is why the production volumes are low. Only about 50 handsets are shipped into India every month.

Sanwal claimed LVMH had begun to make profits last year. “It was a conscious decision not to break-even initially. We had to invest in marketing and make our presence felt. It has worked out well for us,” said Sanwal, who, of course, in the true tradition of all fashion houses, foreign or indigenous, in India, gave no figures.

If it indeed has begun to make profits, it must be considered quite a feat. As late as the beginning of this summer, brands in such luxury paradise as Emporio in Delhi and tony malls elsewhere, were complaining of high rentals that left little room for profits.

XXXXXXXX

By 2011 Dior wants to be the top player in the Swiss watch segment. LVMH is also the franchiser for Zenith watches, a brand that will get increased focus. Both distribution and the product portfolio will widen in India. Zenith watches wil be available at multi- brand stores.

According to Sanwal, Indians think nothing of buying a Rs 2 lakh watch but are shocked to see a Rs 50,000 price tag on a shirt. This, he said, is because Swiss watch brands had been in India for a long time. But not so shirts with global tags.