Videocon Mobile Phones, the handset
brand of the $4 billion Videocon Group,
is mulling a rollout of its fourth
generation 4G-enabled mobile phones i
the next couple of months, a top official
said.
"We are working on 4G enabled handset
and it will be out in the next two
months," Videocon Mobile Phones chief
executive officer Jarold Pereira told IANS
However, Pereira could not quote a price
for the 4G device. He said the company
will manufacture 4G handsets going by
the requirement.
"There are other operators who are
planning to launch 4G services soon. We
do not want to miss out on the
opportunity. If we roll out our own
handset during that time, we can go for
bundled offers," Nikhil Garg, sales head
(North), Videocon Mobile Phones, told
IANS.
Videocon Telecom said February 19 it is
all set to invest over Rs. 1,200 crores
($193 million) in the next three years for
4G rollout in 29 cities. The service will b
rolled out in three circles in UP East, UP
West and Bihar, the company had said
earlier.
"We can also go for bundled offers with
our own services," Garg said, adding:
"The company has set a sales target of
six million handsets per month by 2016."
Saying that the company's mobile phone
business is still at a nascent stage, he
added: "It is five-year-old. We started
manufacturing mobile phones from our
two factories at Aurangabad and
Kashipur (Uttaranchal) a year back.
Around 100,000 units are manufactured
every month in both feature and
smartphone category ranging between
Rs. 800-900 and Rs. 5,000."
Pereira added that the company is also
planning to start a mobile manufacturin
unit in South India in one of its existing
units within a couple of months but
declined to disclose the location. "We are
planning another mobile manufacturing
line in the south. Hopefully it will be
operational within two months."
Garg rued that the ecosystem in India is
still not there for end-to-end
manufacturing of mobile phones. It is
more of assembling and some bit of
manufacturing.
"But we will be focussing more on
manufacturing now as making it here is
set to become more economical than
importing from China," he added.
The mobile handset industry is expecting
that the government will increase the
customs duty on imported handsets fro
the current seven percent to double
digits. That will also help the governmen
to promote its Make in India programme.
"We have the expertise in manufacturing.
We make all our white goods in India
from 17 factories across the country,"
Garg said.
Asked about the planned investment for
enhanced manufacturing, Pereira said:
"We have established factories and we d
not have to build factories for mobile
manufacturing. Hence there is no such
separate investments."
The mobile handset industry is growing
at 10 percent compound annual growth
rate (CAGR). This could also be
Videocon's growth engine for its brand.
Videocon Mobile has a strong presence
in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab.
It is also planning to focus more on the
eastern zone (West Bengal and Bihar),
western zone (Gujarat and Maharashtra)
and southern zone (Andhra Pradesh,
Telangana and Karnataka).
The pan-India market size of mobile
handsets is 20 million units per month.
The company has a full-fledged sales
team with 800-850 direct and micro
dealers.
http://m.gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/videocon-says-it-will-launch-4g-enabled-handsets-in-next-two-months-664286
