After having gained a significant share in the Indian mobile phone market, home-grown mobile phone maker Micromax has now set its sights on the European markets. According to reports, Micromax will be entering Russia and Romania markets by the end of this year – with an objective to become a global brand. Reports come shortly after the company signed Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman as its brand ambassador.
“Our end goal is to go global as an Indian hardware brand. I do not want to be seen as an Indian company anymore. We have tested waters in markets such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and we are among the top three phone brands in both the markets,” Hindu Business Line quotes Rahul Sharma, Co-Founder, Micromax Informatics Ltd. as saying.
“We are launching in Russia in December and if I am able to crack Russia, we will also able to capture the whole (of) Europe,” Sharma said. Micromax has already set up an office in Russia with initial employees coming from rival multinational phone companies. “We have a couple of products especially for that market, and Google doesn’t work there so we have tied up with Yandex on the application level,” he added.
4G devices
In an interview with Times of India, Mr. Rahul Sharma revealed the company will be launching devices with LTE support by December-end.
“We want to establish ourselves on LTE and offer products that are LTE ready by December, so that consumers would not need to change their handsets whenever voice over LTE becomes available, be it six months or eight months later,” TOI quotes Mr. Sharma as saying.
Other segments
Micromax is looking to expand its base in other segments such as software, PCs and laptop segments by next year.
“The next war will be in software and not hardware. Some massive thing will happen from our side on software. We are already in a lookout for software companies and as and when we find one that fits with the organisation, we will do it,” he reveals.
“We have started well and you will see lot of action in the first quarter of next year. We were just testing the waters initially – what are the markets like – and then launch the products,” Sharma added.
According to IDC AP Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report for Q2 2013, Micromax, Karbonn Mobiles and Lava have gained a significant market share in the Indian mobile manufacturing industry.
With 22 percent market share, Micromax is the second most preferred mobile phone brand in India after Samsung. Micromax had an 18.8 percent market share in the first quarter.
Micromax last week unveiled the Canvas Turbo, which is believed to be designed in view of the European market. The smartphone has a 5-inch Full HD CGS (Continuous Grain Silicon) display. A 1.5Ghz quad-core MediaTek MT6589T chipset along with 2GB of RAM. The rear of the device houses a 13MP camera and the front has a 5MP camera. To know more about the smartphone, read Micromax Canvas Turbo smartphone: An Overview
Source: Hindu Business Line, Times of India