Karbonn Mobiles plans to launch dual OS phone

Company is considering Tamil Nadu as one of the potential location to set up facility

Shortly after tying up with Microsoftto launch Windows-based smartphone, Karbonn mobiles, the fourthlargest player in the growing handset market in the country, isplanning to bring in dual-boot model, a mobile phone with twooperating systems in the same phone, in next four to five months.

The company is also activelyconsidering setting up a facility in India, and has Tamil Nadu in itsradar as a potential location, said Sudhir Hasija, chairman, KarbonnMobiles.

Speaking to reporters in the sidelinesof Karbonn Kochadaiiyaan Signature Phone Series, a special editionmobile handset the company bringing out on the Rajinikanth starrerKochadaiiyaan, Hasija said, "We are working on a dual-operationsystem phone, with which the customer can choose which operatingsystem they want to use".

The company, which has been marketingAndroid-based smart phones, has recently signed an agreement withMicrosoft for license to use Windows operating system in its mobiledevice.

"It is not easy to make such aphone. The cost will be a little high. We have a target to launch thedual-operating system phone by June-July," he added.

It may be noted that Joe Belfiore,corporate vice president and manager for Windows Phone Program Management, Microsoft, on February 23 while elaborating on signingdeal with various mobile phone manufacturers including Karbonn, said,"We are adding support for Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 and 400 series chipsets, with options that support all major cellulartechnologies... We will also support soft keys and dual SIM where ourpartners want it for their devices. One nice benefit of theseadditions is that many hardware vendors will be ableto use the same hardware for both Android and Windows Phone devices."

The company is also planning to set upa manufacturing facility in India, and has Tamil Nadu as one of its potential location. "Advantage by setting up a facility in India would be that the supply will become easy. Anything in changing the product model, itis my own factory. It will take me two months to change the product model coming from China, while if it is here we can shift the production from the slow moving product to the fast moving product according to the market demand. Time to market will be very fast," said Hasija.The plans are on the paper now, but the company is seriously working on it since the government has recently come out with a policy on electronic clusters and even the State governments are coming and attracting the mobile industry.

"In fact, there is a lot of racebetween the different governments. You will find this year a lot ofmobile industry moving into India. Our only problem is to set up aproper supply chain, but naturally  that will come in once we put upthe factory. The volumes have come. Once the factory comes up, the suppliers also put their facility here, this will happen this year, I am sure. We are also planning to do it," he added.
 

The company is planning to work with the producers of Kochadaiiyaan for its brand promotion and has launched special edition phones with expections to sell around 10lakh of this phone. It has also launched 4D augmented reality features in the phone, to attract the customers apart from the Kochadaiiyaan signature behind the phone.

The special edition phones, comprising of three smart phones and two feature phones, will have dialogues, videos, images and screen-savers of the movie, targeting the Rajini fans across the globe. The company, which posted annual salesturnover of Rs 2,300 crore in FY 2012-13 is expecting to clock inaround Rs 3,500 crore this year.