Telecom Lead Asia: ZTE Telecom has finalized its smartphone strategies for Indian mobile phone market.
ZTE smartphone products will be available in five major states including Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh by the end of October 2013.
ZTE would target 60 cities and towns through over 7000 touch points.
This will be the first time that ZTE will be selling smartphones in the open market in India.
In fact, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers – led by ZTE, Huawei, etc — increased their share in smartphone market to 29 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 13.2 percent a year ago. The Chinese and local manufacturers are offering affordable devices with optimum features such as 2.5G (EDGE) instead of 3G in a smartphone, according to a recent Gartner report.
The global smartphone sales reached 210 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 42.9 percent from the first quarter of 2012.
For ZTE, the 4th largest mobile handset manufacturer, smartphone is a big business and key growth propeller, contributing to 10 percent of its overall revenues.
ZTE, in 2012, posted revenue of 25.84 billion yuan from terminals business. In the terminals division, ZTE continued to record strong growth in sales of smart devices, as the company delivered competitive products, and diversified its distribution channels.
ZTE will enter the Indian smartphone market with an initial portfolio of five different models of smartphones ranging from Rs 5,799 to Rs 14,999.
The Chinese telecom equipment maker will also launch tablet PCs in the Indian market.
To ensure pan India presence, ZTE has tied up with Pune-based Calyx Telecommunications, a part of the Calyx Group.
Under this partnership, ZTE will provide best-in-class products and post sales services and Calyx will be responsible for distribution, sales and marketing.
Xu Dejun, CEO, ZTE India, said, “Backed by our strong portfolio and R&D capabilities supported by Calyx Telecommunications strong financing background and distribution channels, we expect to emerge as a key player in the Indian smartphone arena.”
India is an important market as ZTE had a weak performance in the first quarter of 2013, failing to grow its smartphone sales, selling 7.9 million smartphones, a 5.1 percent decline year-on-year.
