gopi_vbboy
Cyborg Agent
The Shenzen-based consortium wants a franchisee network in the country
A consortium of Chinese mobile makers are planning a quiet entry into India with the help of a start-up, which would set up over 200 sales and service centres for nearly 50 different manufacturers.
The start-up, a company called AndroidGuruz, plans to set up sales and experience zones, giving the Chinese companies a foothold into the Indian market.
“The Government has already given FDI clearance or is in the process of granting clearance to these 40-45 brands which are in the mobile phone business. We are looking to give the consortium, which is made up of these brands, a support network,” said Vivek Despande, Asia Support Manager of AndroidGuruz.
The Shenzen-based consortium wants a franchisee network in the country, which will comprise brands such as Zopo, UMI, JiaYu and Mogu.
The first such store will open in New Delhi over the next three months, with more in Bangalore and Mumbai to follow by the end of the year.
According to Mr. Despande, while the companies would initially sell Android-based phones, it could serve as a prelude to offering tablets and other such devices.
India battleground
The smartphone battleground in India has received tough Chinese competition over the last one year, with established brands such as Huawei and Lenovo managing to make slow inroads into the market. Huawei, in fact, plans to set up nearly 250 experience centres by the end of 2013.
Three months ago, Chinese firm Konka announced its entry into India with an investment of $30 million.
The Hindu
Source2
themobileindian.com
....Chinese player is entering the market with three handsets priced between 8000 to 12500 with Quad Core phone with HD display being the flagship product.
Yet another Chinese player, Jiayu is entering the Indian market with three smartphones priced between Rs 8,000 to Rs 12,500. The smartphones are expected to be made available in a couple of weeks.
The flagship phone for Jiayu in India will be G4 which will have a quad core processor, 1GB RAM, 4G ROM, Android 4.1 OS, 4.7 inch IPS screen (using the Corning II gorilla glass), 312PPi pixel density, 3.0 megapixel front camera for convenient self-capturing and 13 megapixel back camera.
G4 will also get a host of sensors like gyroscope, G-sensor, light and distance. The handset is expected to be very compact with just 2.9mm ultra-narrow metal frame around the display.
*www.themobileindian.com/images/nnews/2013/04/11579/jiayuG2s.jpg
Meanwhile demand for cheap smartphone is obviously high.
Micromax Canvas Viva A72, sold out in an hour
*i1.imagesbhaskar.com/thumbnail/636x303/web2images/www.dailybhaskar.com/2013/04/09/7215_canvas-viva-a72-out-of-stoc.jpg
An hour back we spotted the Micromax Canvas Viva A71 at the Flipkart online store. Now, we see it is “out of stock”. We wonder how many number of handsets the company released in the market.
The Canvas Viva A72 is another 5 inch phone from the company which will run on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. It was expected to be priced below the other Canvas phones. And the company also placed at a decent Rs 6999. And in less than an hour (see time of the earlier post here) the phone is showing out of stock.
With the A116 Canvas HD, Micromax released about 9000 pieces in the market which were sold out within 24 hours and customers had to wait for another one and a half month for the next lot of the phone. Though Micromax seems to have learnt from its past experience (this time it choose one of the popular and trusted online retail store Flipkart over Snapdeal) but, did not take care of the supply side. We believe the company released less than 5000 pieces of this phone. A flipkart executive informed us that the information is not available to be shared. Even the date for next stock is not known.
We will not be surprised if this low cost phone is wvailable in market at a higher price at some sellers, like the Canvas HD. And we guessed right - a seller on eBay is selling the phone at Rs 7499 at eBay India. This seller goes by the name Micromax Official (see here).