Small mobile handset makers eyeing Indian market
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 15 April 2010, 23:05 IST   |    1 Comments
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Small mobile handset makers eyeing Indian market
Mumbai: Indian is witnessing the entry of new mobile handset makers every month, while taking the total number of handset manufacturers about 30 from a mere five in 2008. New vendors are all set to compete with the well established players like Nokia, Samsung and LG in terms of price, features, models and services. For the year 2009, new vendors registered a combined market share of 12.3 per cent of the total 101.54 million mobile handset sales. In fact, the number of such new vendors in the India mobile handsets market grew to 28 notes Naveen Mishra, lead analyst, mobile handsets research, IDC India. Mishra believes that new players will continue to flood the Indian mobile handset market. "The market will witness the launch of more look-alikes following the launch of smartphone models by major vendors. The adoption of these look-alikes is expected to be higher amongst students and young executives, whose purchase decisions are often driven by peer group and lifestyle influences, as well as affordability," said Mishra. As India moves towards 600 million subscriber base, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has reported 53.37 million net additions in last quater ended December 2009, of which 31 percent came from rural subscriptions. Luminous, a power and storage company has recently forayed into the mobile handset market under Wynn telecom. The company is expected to launch seven dual SIM handsets priced at 5,000. The company is also planning to invest 100 crore in this fiscal year and will focus on segments like utility, upgrade and youth phones. "Even before our launching, we have established a design facility in China comprising of 20 people. Soon, we will begin our domestic handset manufacturing unit too in order to reduce the time-to-market for the handsets," said Rakesh Malhotra, Co-Founder and Chairman of Wynn Telecom. Since its launch in December last year, Olive telecom has introduced nine mobile handsets priced at 999 and onwards, and aims to launch 30 more models this year. "We have invested in four R&D centers, which currently involved in developing 3G compatible handsets along with other products in the IT and telecom space," said Arun Khanna, Chairman of Olive Telecommunications. "We are also planning to invest about 445 crore in the new R&D center in Delhi," Khanna said. Airfone, which begin with 37 service centers now grown to 121 centers. "We are now focusing on setting up a handset assembling unit in Tamil Nadu this year that will help us in managing device costs," said Vishal Chitkara, Director, Airfone. Despite so many players, many feel that there is enough room for everyone. "We believe that if done right then we can cement our position in the crowded market. So, we began with handsets customised with a Cricinfo widget, Facebook and Orkut integration. With Aircel as the operator partner, we are doing good sales," claims Frank Meehan, CEO of INQ Mobiles. After-sales service is one area where these new brands are keen to make a dent.

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