Coolpad aims at tripling smartphone sales in India, looks at offline push

Currently, Coolpad smartphones are made in India at the Videocon facility

China-based Coolpad plans to triple sales of its smartphones to 3 million in a year by expanding offline and planning $ 20 million spend on advertising to push its products in the country.

Coolpad, which makes its smartphones at the Videocon facility in India, may look at producing on its own once it reaches a stable volume.

Coolpad India CEO Syed Tajuddin said the the company is already assembling at a Videocon manufacturing facility and whatever phones are being sold in India for the past six months, came from that unit.

"It's the first phase, when things stabilize, obviously, we plan to put our own premises for manufacturing but for that we need scope of volume to sustain the facility. We will start our own facility when the volumes reach 5 million per year, which is required to sustain one factory," he told Business Standard.

Coolpad is around 23-year old Shenzhen headquartered mobile phone company, which entered the Indian market in September last year and has already sold about 1 million devices.

Globally, Coolpad produces 34 million smartphones each year and has revenues of USD 3 billion every year.

As an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), the company has presence in the Indian market for the last nine years, when it used to supply phones to some domestic and global phone brands but last year, it entered as Coolpad brand in India.

The company continues to make phones for other brands in India but did not divulge details as these are business arrangements.

India has seen about 35 new smartphone factories in the past two years, with a production capacity of about 18 million devices a month. The government has set up a task force with a vision to produce 500 million phones by 2019-20 and create five million jobs.

Coolpad, which has achieved sales worth around Rs 800 crore in India, also plans to explore the offline medium to sell its products. Currently, it is selling online through Amazon.

The company today launched a 4G-enabled phone for Rs 6999 which comes with 3GB RAM, 5.5 inch HD display and 8 mega pixel rear and front camera.