Targeting the ‘fortune’ at the bottom of the pyramid, Spice Mobiles is aiming to grow its business in the sub Rs 4,000 phone market that is popular in the tier 2 and 3 locations, company chief executive officer Amandeep Singh said on Thursday. Spice Mobiles, the devices business of listed entity Spice Mobility, is gearing up to position itself strongly in the Rs 3,000 crore per month market of the sub Rs 4,000 phones and is eyeing 15-20 per cent share of the market. This segment is about 40 per cent of India’s handset market.
“It’s a huge market that is currently under-served. Domestic players are there but we believe we understand that market better. Feature and smartphones are consumer needs. In rural markets, they don’t even understand the difference between a smartphone and a feature phone,” Singh said in an interaction here. “They come to the shop and ask for WhatsApp-wala phone. They are very price sensitive consumers,” Singh added.
As announced in January this year, the company plans to open a local manufacturing unit in Uttar Pradesh. “It should be operational by June-July. Right now, we source mobiles from China. The Indian unit will give us 5-6 per cent cost savings. We will start production with 500,000 phones per month,” Singh said. The company is also planning to invest significantly in marketing activities such as local campaigns, retail branding to enhance its brand presence. “We will invest Rs 100 crore in marketing over the next few months across the country.
We need to strengthen the brand,” Singh, who previously held the position of the chief financial officer for the company, said. The company has an annual volume of over 8 million devices and a market share of nearly 4- 5 per cent of the Indian mobile devices market.
