Karbonn too eyes online-only model, will look to procure locally for Make in India

Having partnered with China's Water World Technologies, Karbonn aims to procure locally to make smartphones locally.

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Having partnered with China’s Water World Technologies, Karbonn aims to procure locally to make smartphones locally.

Karbonn, one of India’s top smartphone manufacturers, is also joining the online-only bandwagon with the launch of its Titanium Mach Five. This comes just weeks after Micromax announced Xpress and Lava’s sub-brand Xolo launched Black, both Flipkart-only product ranges.

“Currently, we are seeing 25 to 30 per cent of our smartphone sales coming from online platforms. With the new online-only Titanium Mach Five we are looking to increase our online presence,” said Shashin Devsare, Executive Director, Karbonn.

Having said Karbonn will continue to strengthen its offline distribution. “We cater to about 85,000 retailers through our 1,500-plus distributors. We are looking to grow both online and offline segments to grow simultaneously,” said Devsare.

Having partnered with China’s Water World Technologies, Karbonn wants ‘Make in India’ to go beyond just importing components from China and then assembling them locally. “We are looking at procuring part and components locally as well. We want to help create a local parts and component ecosystem,” said an optimistic Devsare.

Despite the influx of powerful Chinese brands, local players are still dominant across India. “We are selling around 700,000 to 800,000 smartphones a month. We believe this figure will go up to 1.25 million by the end of this year,” added Devsare. All smartphone companies in India have their pocket boroughs and for Karbonn it is Maharashtra in the west, Uttar Pradesh in the north, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the south and Bihar and Jharkhand in the east.

“We are more concerned about profitable growth than market position. Karbonn has always grown quarter-on-quarter profitably. With this we are looking at making in India without any external funding,” he said.

On the software front, the brand aims to provide an Indian experience to consumers. “Mobile phone software is predominantly originating from India and one needs to utilise that strength. Through software we can offer a differentiated experience. Hardware sourcing has been already democratised. Every brand would be able to offer every specification. We aim to provide relevant smartphone experience to our consumers through local software,” stressed Devsare.

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Karbonn was among the first wave to launch Android One smartphones in India last year. “Android One when it started off, couldn’t create a differentiated offering. We have a strategic partnership with Google and we believe when we go ahead we would be able to offer differentiated products,” added Devsare. The company, however, is open to introduce another Android One smartphone in future.

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