Tecno i7 is the flagship smartphone and will be hitting the market only in May.
China’s Transsion Holdings, which operates a number of brands including itel, wants to play a larger role in the Indian smartphone market. The company on Monday introduced Tecno, a new brand which will cater to the fast-growing mid-range segment.
The company has launched five smartphones in its “i”series – i5,i5 Pro, i3, i3 Pro and i7. The i5, i5 Pro, i3 and i3 Pro will be available from April 22, whereas the flagship i7 is slated to hit the market sometime in May. All these phones are priced between Rs 7,990 and Rs 14,990.
“Our “i” series is made for India, designed for India”, Arif Chowdhury, Vice-President, Transsion Holdings, told Indianexpress.com. “India is a very important market for us and most importantly, we are launching a series of products, not one product. It’s easy to make one phone for India but to make a series for India shows how serious we are about the market,” he added.
Unlike its arch rivals in the smartphone business, many of whom opted to sell their products through only online channel, Tecno will be positioned as an offline-only brand. Although the company did mention that it is evaluating the online model, it declined to reveal the exact plan.
Initially, the Tecno brand has been launched in three states of Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat. According to Chowdhury, the company plans to sell these devices through 129 distributors in these states, and has more than 10,000 touch points.
“After-sales service is very important for the group,” he said when asked about the company’s emphasis on providing customer service to users in India. “We have spent $70-75 million dollars globally to set-up service centers,” Chowdhury said. Even though the company operates its own service centers in other markets where the brand has made its presence, in India it will be dependent on 144 third-party after-sales service outlets.
Anuj Bhatia is a personal technology writer at indianexpress.com who has been covering smartphones, personal computers, gaming, apps, and lifestyle tech actively since 2011. He specialises in writing longer-form feature articles and explainers on trending tech topics. His unique interests encompass delving into vintage tech, retro gaming and composing in-depth narratives on the intersection of history, technology, and popular culture. He covers major international tech conferences and product launches from the world's biggest and most valuable tech brands including Apple, Google and others. At the same time, he also extensively covers indie, home-grown tech startups. Prior to joining The Indian Express in late 2016, he served as a senior tech writer at My Mobile magazine and previously held roles as a reviewer and tech writer at Gizbot. Anuj holds a postgraduate degree from Banaras Hindu University. You can find Anuj on Linkedin.
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