Tony Navin, SVP, Snapdeal -Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, Business Head, Mobile,

Intex Technologies - Keshav Bansal, Director Marketing, Intex Technologies and

Jane Hsu, Director Product Marketing, Mozilla Corp at the launch of Intex Cloud
FX in August.
Written by Debashis Sarkar | New Delhi | Updated: January 3, 2015 6:08 pm
Intex Technologies, a less talked about brand in the Indian smartphone market, has
been growing silently and is eyeing a strong position in the top three brands in
India. The company claims to have sold 3.5 million smartphones (within AprilDecember, 2014 period) and is confident it will leave other local competitors
behind.
Overall, 2014 was good for us. We have exceeded our targets and expect to close
our financial year, which ends in March 2015, with a turnover of Rs 4,000 crore.
Last financial year, our turnover was Rs 2,000 crore, thus, we are aiming to
achieve 100 per cent growth, said Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, Business HeadMobile, Intex Technologies in an exclusive interaction with IndianExpress.com.
In the smartphone market, it was the stellar performance of Aqua series of
smartphones that helped Intex Technologies grow significantly. While the sale of
feature phones got saturated, our Aqua series of smartphones gave us a boost,
which was followed by the launch of the Aqua Star series, said Kalirona.
By December 2014, we sold around 3.5 million smartphones. We also sold around
a million feature phones per month. We expect our mobile business turnover to
touch Rs 2,800 crore by March 2015 and grab around 6 to 7 per cent of the mobile
market share.
The mobile business, which includes smartphones and feature phones, has already
achieved a turnover of Rs 1,900 crore. The company claims to have sold 5.25 lakh
smartphones per month, on an average, in the festive months of October,
November and December 2014.
Intex has a strong market presence in North India followed by West and East.
Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan are our strongholds, adds
Karilona.
After marking seven years in the mobile market, Intex Technologies has a very
clear strategy and looks to have a good understanding of the mobile market. While
other players might believe in creating a hype in the market, Intex shuns that and
believes in traditional marketing and actual sales figures. The brand struggled
initially and barely made it among the top 10 mobile businesses sometime back but
the sudden growth indicates Intex is on the right track.

To achieve this kind of strong growth, Intex has implemented an old school
strategy. While others diverted their focus to boost sales on the online medium, the
New Delhi-headquartered company has focused more on its distribution network
and service centres. Given the market scenario, over 95 per cent of our sales come
from retail stores. Customers of most Indian smartphone brands shop offline. We
are preparing ourselves to boost online sales but our focus is more on strengthening
our channel sales. We are increasing our retail presence. Currently, Intex
smartphones are present in around 35,000 retail stores in the country and we are
looking forward to take it to 80,000 multi-branded retail stores.
Another interesting aspect is that Intex Technologies in a way believes in first
mover disadvantage. When asked about the companys plans to venture into
wearables, Kalirona replied, We will bring products only after observing market
trends. As of now, we dont find enough traction for fitness bands or smartwatches
in India. If the demand is established, we will surely step in.
Even in smartphones, Intex has carefully launched products according to consumer
trends. When the demand for selfies was established, we launched our Aqua Star
series. When smartphones with larger batteries started to trend, we introduced the
Aqua Power smartphone. We are not too keen to bring something first and then test
the market. Going forward we will introduce more smartphones with high end
specs at an affordable price with 4G connectivity, adds Kalirona.
Apart from smartphones, consumer electronics business, especially LCD/LED
TVs, speakers and computer peripherals has also contributed to the Intex
Technologies growth story.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/technology-others/afterselling-3-5-mn-smartphones-intex-eyes-top-3-spot-in-india/#sthash.fdIgyCKu.dpuf