COMIO is investing INR 150 crore in device manufacturing in India in the next two years, says Sanjay Kalirona, CEO and director, COMIO Smartphone.
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Telecom engineers at the contract manufacturer manages end-to-end management, including assembly, packaging, maintenance, testing, quality assurance and warehousing for both the existing as well as upcoming smartphones for the brand across 8 assembly and packaging lines.
COMIO Smartphone is in the process of setting up its R&D Centre by this quarter. COMIO Smartphone currently has a team of 20 designers and engineers people to work on bringing in innovative smartphone features needed for the Indian market.
Rajeev Nair, senior analyst – Smart Connected Devices, Strategy Analytics, said: “India with the ‘Make in India’ has made rapid strides in handset production / assembly. We estimate it having edged past Vietnam in 2017 to be the second biggest destination in handset production / assembly.”
Keysight Technologies, a leading test and measurement company, is working with top OEMs to accelerate manufacturing of mobile handsets by providing manufacturing test solutions. “Phone manufacturing companies rely on Keysight’s testing solutions for testing handsets, electronic components and IoT devices at their manufacturing units,” said Sandeep Kapoor, head Marketing Aerospace Defense – EMEAI Region and country head Marketing India at Keysight Technologies.
COMIO Smartphone, which focuses on producing high quality phones, has sold 3.5 lakh devices through primary sales and 2 lakh devices through tertiary sales — within just 4 months of products entering the market.
COMIO Smartphone’s channel strategy is a vital part of the growth plan. With a network of partners the focus is in reaching out to the consumers across the country. Simultaneously, COMIO Smartphone is also running a program of distributors meet and training.
3 critical success factors for COMIO India
# Distribution strength
# Focus on the mid-segment (6-12K category)
# Differentiated consumer experience
Growth plans for 2018
This year, COMIO Smartphone will launch smartphones in South and East markets. The aim is to position COMIO as a strong emerging brand in the smartphone segment.
It will be primarily going to focus on general trade/offline market and aim to gain consumers’ trust and belief.
COMIO will be highly focused at ensuring that its consumers get the best products and are supported by its elaborate, well equipped and efficient team of service personnel.
COMIO Smartphone will target have 30,000 retailers and 800 distributors to strengthen brand presence in the Indian phone market. It will also increase our after-sales touch points to 800+ catering to 500-550 towns.
COMIO Smartphone will open new channels of LFR and e-commerce in order to gain volumes and share by leveraging on communication support apart from specific inputs for these channels.
Innovation
COMIO thrives on its ability to constantly innovate and challenge market dynamics. The company will have a suite of novel marketing plans in its roster, and will aim to focus more actively on after-sales service for its customers.
Keysight Technologies, one of the testing solution suppliers, said its mobile device manufacturing tactics include multiport scheme among others to address increased test density with reduced footprint enabling the OEMs to get the much needed first mover advantage in the highly competitive market.
“We are here to stay longer in India and will constantly push to impress and capture the hearts of our customers with stylish cutting-edge design, exceptional user experience, consumer-friendly product development, quality service, and most importantly an attitude for perfection,” Sanjay Kalirona said.
# Camera performance
# Bigger memory
# Freezer Application
# Venus Browser
# Advanced security features
The demand for smartphones is growing exponentially in India especially in Tier II and III markets. Local smartphone manufacturing will contribute sizable growth of companies in India and the growth of the nation as well.
The Union Budget-2018 is a positive step towards India’s growing smartphone market. The increased custom duty on mobiles will further boost local manufacturing and will be the essential push to create a manufacturing eco-system as well as boost local manufacturing of components and accessories in India.
Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative has been pushing companies to invest in India and focus on local manufacturing.
This is opportune time to introduce next set of regulations to attract investment in the manufacturing sector and establish India as a global hub for electronics. “Some of our smartphones are assembled locally and we are exploring ways to further increase the share of local manufacturing to ensure there is minimal cost impact of any new regulations to the end customer,” Sanjay Kalirona said.
Sumit Sehgal, chief marketing officer and Anil Tiwari, product head are supporting Sanjay Kalirona in the growth of COMIO.
COMIO has 200 employees on-roll and 1,500 off roll. It will hire almost 1,000 people on company roll and another 5,000 people on third party roll to meet sales requirements. Other than that, it will be hiring another 2,000 people for R& D and manufacturing.
COMIO is looking at building a new R&D team based out of India in concurrence to its manufacturing hub in north India. The R&D team will be led by a 20 member team which will have approximately 12 Chinese and 8 Indian employees.
Baburajan K
