Singapore - Asia's premier trade shows for the information-communication and media industries opened Tuesday with more than 2,300 firms from 65 countries showcasing their technological developments in the hopes of clinching slices of an estimated 4.8 billion US dollars in deals.

"We are meeting amidst an uncertain global business outlook resulting from high oil prices and upheavals in the financial sector," Lee Boon Yang, Singapore's minister for information, communications and the arts, said in kicking off the four-day CommunicAsia and Broadcast Asia trade shows.

The demand for high-speed internet and higher bandwidth would continue, he predicted.

"In a global environment, having a pervasive national broadband network has become more important for most countries in terms of growing the economy, enhancing international competitiveness and enriching the lives" of citizens, Lee said.

At CommunicAsia, technologies on show included the latest in 3G, Fibre-To-The-Home, satellite and security technologies along with the largest display ever of WiMax, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, exhibits.

The spotlight at Broadcast Asia is on interactive digital media, internet protocol TV, mobile TV and high-definition TV technologies.

More than 80 per cent of the participating companies hail from abroad. Samsung, the world's number two phone maker, launched its Omnia model before the opening while Garmin on Tuesday unveiled its own take on the touch-screen phenomenon, the nuvifone.

The nuvifone has satellite tracking and features navigation aids that allow users to find the nearest shopping centre or petrol station, for example.

Users of touch-screen phones tap on icons on the screen. There are few or no buttons.

Samsung was demonstrating the Omnia with its 8-centimetre screen and 16 gigabytes of space for thousands of songs as its mobile division's vice president for marketing, Yonghee Lee, bragged its calling and text-messaging functions were easier to use than Apple's iPhone's.

Google showed off free software called Android on its much-anticipated mobile phone-operating system to be unveiled in a few months.

Free or open-source software would encourage more innovations for the benefit of the world's users of more than 3 billion cellular phones, said Andy Rubin, senior director of mobile platforms.

Android is being developed by Google and 33 other technology companies.

With a deluge of touch-screen choices emerging, analyst Aloysius Choong predicted their popularity would soar.

"Such smart phones have been too complex to use," he said, predicting more users with the easier interface. (dpa)