Telecom Lead India: Spice, India’s leading mobile
handset company, has chalked out growth strategies to increase market share in
smart phone market.
Currently, India’s smart phone market is dominated by
Samsung, Nokia, Research In Motion, Apple, LG, Sony, Apple, etc.
However, both Research In Motion and Nokia are struggling to
keep pace with Samsung and others.
Spice sold over 6 million handsets in 2011 and is aiming to
achieve 7 million mark this year. A small portion of 7 million will be smart
phones.
With the introduction of new affordable smartphone range in
India, Spice Mobility is poised to boost its current share in the Indian
market.
As part of its long-term strategy, Spice will increase its focus on smart phones. However, it will continue with feature phones. Spice feels that it will not be an easy task to compete with foreign handset makers in the smartphone market.
Spice unveils new range of smartphones at competitive prices
Spice has unveiled a new affordable
range of smartphones under the name Spice Stellar. The new range consists of
three smartphones with varied screen sizes that are 3.5, 4 and 5 inches.
Presently, Spice has 4-5 percent market share in the Indian mobile devices market. The company
reckons that this market share will improve with this new portfolio.
While talking to Telecom Lead, Kunal Ahooja, global head –
Devices at S Mobility said that the company is still in a nascent stage, and is
not keeping any sort of target in terms of market share. However, the company
believes that it will improve significantly in coming 2-3 years.
Spice has strong foothold in Malaysia, Indonesia and
Thailand. Spice stands at third rank in these markets in terms of mobile market
share. The leaders in this markets are Samsung and Nokia.
With business operations spanning across India, Nepal,
Bangladesh, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka S Mobility is expanding
its geographical presence from Indonesia to Ivory Coast through its channel
partners and distributors.
Furthermore, the company is aggressive and plans to launch
two new tablets this year for the Indian market. Last year, Spice launched
Spice 7 inch 3G ready Mi-720 tablet. Ahooja said that this year
the company will launch tablets focusing on Wi-Fi connectivity, as there is a
big demand of such tablets in the Indian market.
Ahooja also added that Spice is focused on bringing new
devices with WoW” features such as secured Android. The company has also
started advertisement campaign on various mediums.
Other domestic players such as Micromax, lava and Karbonn
have also started to focus on their smartphone offerings.
Micromax to grab 10% mobile market share by 2013: CEO
Recently, Micromax said that it is looking to grab 10
percent of the total Indian mobile market share by 2013, with its dual-SIM
feature and smartphones.
Similarly to Spice, Micromax has also established presence
in India, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Nepal,Sri-Lanka, Maldives, UAE, Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Afghanistan and Brazil.
Micromax said that it ships more than 4 million handsets quarterly.
Intel and Lava International launch XOLO X900 smartphone at Rs
22,000
Lava another Indian company has also forayed into smartphone
segment with its XOLO X900 smartphone, which the company launched in
collaboration with Intel. Lava too aims to increase its mobile handset market
share with few more planned launches this year.
Danish Khan
[email protected]
