ZTE launches five new phones in India, starts direct sales
ZTE entered the Indian market some time ago, but the company has never sold its devices directly. Instead, resellers or online stores were used. Now, the Chinese manufacturer has announced a major shift in its strategy for the Indian market, and it will begin selling smartphones directly with the help of Calyx Telecommunications and its retail network – the agreement for the ZTE’s distribution and marketing activities was signed earlier. ZTE is going to cover the product and post-sales services.
Currently, ZTE sells in India variety of low-budget smartphones, but after the new agreement, the company will launch another 5 new models – this time sold directly to consumers. Priced between $105 and $270, these five new models will be available on the market in October, according to ZTE’s sources. Furthermore, ZTE plans to extend the product offering in India, adding a tablet. All these plans are quite challenging – the Indian market is huge and it possesses certain barriers for any new company. Initially, ZTE is focused on 60 cities across 5 states and with the new strategy ZTE wants to increase its overall revenue. According to the latest reports, the Indian sales accounts for 10% of company’s revenue, but now a target of 1 million devices for the first year has been set.
India is currently one of the fastest growing markets. Cybermedia Research revealed that 15 million handsets were shipped in 2012, which was a growth of 75% on year’s base. Samsung is the top phone brand in India with 41% of all sales, followed by Nokia – 13% and Sony 8%. With the market growth there is a tendency users to want more sophisticated phones. It is interesting to observe how ZTE will manage to boost their customer base in India and how it will compete with the main rivals on the market.
Source: TheNextWeb
